The questions in the House of Commons on Monday followed a Postmedia News story last week about a secret report from a committee of federal deputy ministers to the country’s top bureaucrat that highlighted the need for the federal government to do more to combat climate change.

The report from the Deputy Ministers’ Committee on Climate Change, Energy and the Environment to the Clerk of the Privy Council Wayne Wouters said more action is needed to mitigate climate change and manage the risks that threaten Canadian communities, government infrastructure, food security and human health.

On Monday, NDP deputy leader and environment critic Megan Leslie went after the Harper government in question period over why it continues to delay greenhouse gas regulations for the oil and gas sector and hasn’t accepted the advice of its own deputy ministers.

“The Conservative government loves to blame foreign radicals for criticism of their inaction on climate change. However, now those so-called radicals are their own deputy ministers,” Leslie said. “Why are the Conservatives refusing to act?”

Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq didn’t directly comment on the secret report and advice from the deputy ministers, but claimed the government is a “world leader” in addressing climate change.

“We continue to work with the provinces in reducing emissions from the oil and gas sector,” Aglukkaq said in the Commons. “It is premature to comment further on any work on the regulations.”

The Alberta oilsands are the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.

The federal Conservative government has repeatedly delayed long-awaited greenhouse gas regulations for the oil and gas industry, a decision all the more interesting when the most senior federal bureaucrats are flagging concerns about climate change and challenges in tackling GHGs in the energy sector.

The report says a wide range of climate-change impacts are being felt across Canada, including disappearing Arctic sea ice, thawing permafrost, rising sea levels and increased risks of severe weather. Moreover, “it is likely that these conditions will be exacerbated as the climate continues to change in the future,” it says.

]]>http://o.canada.com/news/national/ndp-roasts-government-for-ignoring-deputy-ministers-climate-change-advice/feed2OilsandsjasonfeketeNew year will bring big decisions concerning the future of Canada’s oilsandshttp://o.canada.com/news/national/new-year-will-bring-big-decisions-concerning-the-future-of-canadas-oilsands
http://o.canada.com/news/national/new-year-will-bring-big-decisions-concerning-the-future-of-canadas-oilsands#commentsFri, 27 Dec 2013 20:56:30 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=374933]]>OTTAWA — The National Energy Board’s conditional approval of the Northern Gateway pipeline is just one of three major policy decisions expected over the coming months that will have huge implications on the federal government’s plans to diversify Canada’s energy export markets and ship oilsands crude abroad.

The Conservative government, energy industry and environmental groups are still anxiously awaiting the final U.S. environmental impact statement and decision from the Obama administration on the Keystone XL oilsands pipeline, as well as a European Union vote on the Fuel Quality Directive — decisions expected in the coming weeks and months.

“They’re all critical for market access,” said David McLaughlin, past chief of staff to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and former president of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

“The fact they’re going to come into play in 2014 really does make this a year of decision for Canada’s oilsands on whether it’s going to be able to beat back some of the opposition that has had years to develop on environmental and climate change concerns.”

The federal government has up to six months to review the NEB panel’s approval of the Northern Gateway pipeline — and its 209 conditions that went with it — before announcing its decision.

At the same time, Ottawa’s attention on the oilsands file will also be directed south of the border to the Keystone XL decision and across the Atlantic for the proposed fuel law.

“Oil sands have become a major target for ENGO (environmental non-governmental organization) campaigns against fossil fuel production both in the U.S. and EU. While some criticisms have merit, others are ill-founded,” say briefing notes titled “secret” and prepared for Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver.

“NRCan (Natural Resources Canada) has engaged in a communications strategy that seeks to ground the discussion around the facts of oilsands environmental impacts and Canada’s regulatory response to these challenges,” say the notes, obtained by Postmedia News under access to information.

The $5.4-billion TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline would transport 830,000 barrels of oil a day, including from Alberta’s oilsands and North Dakota’s Bakken formation, to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Many politicians and analysts on both sides of the border had expected the U.S. State Department’s final environmental impact statement on the project would have been released by the end of the year. The Harper government had hoped a final decision from U.S. President Barack Obama would then be delivered in the first few months of 2014.

Much like Northern Gateway, the Keystone XL project has faced fierce criticism from environmental groups, concerned citizens and landowners about possible pipeline leaks and its potential to increase greenhouse gas emissions from the oilsands.

The Conservative government argues the pipeline is an important project for transporting Canadian oilsands bitumen to market, improving U.S. energy security, and creating thousands of jobs south of the border.

In Europe, the federal government has been heavily lobbying EU lawmakers to reject the proposed Fuel Quality Directive, which would label the Alberta oilsands — the third largest proven oil reserves in the world — a dirtier form of crude.

A vote by EU environment ministers on the proposed fuel law had been expected by potentially mid-December, but it has been delayed until 2014. A revised proposal with an impact assessment could be presented in early 2014.

The Harper government says it supports Europe’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but believes the fuel directive, as proposed, would discriminate against oilsands-derived fuels. The government worries the fuel law would stigmatize the oilsands and hurt Canada’s efforts to sell the resource around the world.

“The days of pure market forces driving energy policy in this country are over,” added McLaughlin. “Energy companies have to accept and embrace the fact their products are being viewed through a variety of lenses.”

A recently released report commissioned by the federal and Alberta governments supported their view the FQD unfairly singles out the oilsands for discriminatory treatment.

The proposed European Union fuel law calls for a six-per-cent reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions intensity of transportation fuels by 2020.

The European Commission has recommended oilsands-derived fuel be given a greenhouse gas rating 22 per cent higher than fuel from conventional crude oil.

]]>http://o.canada.com/news/national/new-year-will-bring-big-decisions-concerning-the-future-of-canadas-oilsands/feed3OilsandsjasonfeketeHarper government gave oil and pipeline companies $400M to go greenhttp://o.canada.com/technology/environment/harper-government-gave-big-oil-and-pipeline-companies-400m-to-go-green
http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/harper-government-gave-big-oil-and-pipeline-companies-400m-to-go-green#commentsSun, 22 Dec 2013 20:00:31 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=372583]]>OTTAWA – Canadian taxpayers have given more than $400 million to some large oil, gas and pipeline companies in recent years to support green projects that are also boosting the industry’s environmental credentials.

An analysis of federal accounting records by Postmedia News shows that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has offered these subsidies to money-making companies such as Shell Canada, Suncor, Husky Energy and Enbridge to pursue projects in biofuels production and wind energy as well as new technology to capture carbon pollution and bury it underground.

About $1.4 million in federal government climate change spending has also benefited state-owned oil companies in Mexico (PEMEX) and China (the China National Petroleum Corporation) for projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Environment Canada said the international funding, part of the government’s global climate change commitment, didn’t directly fund companies, but went through “industry partners with technical expertise” to help Mexico, Colombia and China reduce heat-trapping gases released into the atmosphere.

Suncor was one of the top recipients of federal funding from Natural Resources Canada with nearly $134 million in subsidies since 2007 for biofuels production ($117 million) and wind energy ($16.6 million) projects.

“The subsidies made these projects more attractive for all developers of new, emerging technology, including Suncor,” wrote Suncor spokeswoman Sneh Seetal in an email to Postmedia News.

In some of its recent marketing campaigns, Suncor has featured images of its wind energy projects, promoting its environmental credentials, without making reference to the subsidies it receives from taxpayers.

Natural Resources Canada’s biofuels and renewable power programs, which are being wound down by the Harper government, were meant to offer billions of dollars in incentives to producers, starting in 2007. They have generated a popular response from a variety of energy companies of different sizes and stimulated industrial growth. For example, Natural Resources Canada estimates that local biofuels production grew to over 1.88 billion litres of ethanol and 575 million litres of biodiesel in 2012, up from about 200 million litres of ethanol and no commercial biodiesel plants in 2005.

But department spokeswoman Jacinthe Perras said the biofuels program has been redesigned and will only spend $1 billion out of an original budget of $1.5 billion. While it continues to provide subsidies until 2017, she said the government announced in February 2013 that it would no longer accept new applicants.

Shell Canada also defended its own subsidy of $120 million, noting that it was in support of its Quest carbon capture and storage project that would require the company – which said it paid more than $400 million in 2012 for income taxes and royalties to the federal and provincial governments – to share its technical expertise with other companies. The project was also expected to be one of the first of its kind, capturing heat-trapping pollution equivalent to the emissions generated by 175,000 North American vehicles in a year.

“If you look globally I think you’ll find governments around the world are making similar investments to help make CCS happen,” said Shell Canada spokesman David Williams.

Enbridge, which received about $22.8 million for wind energy projects, noted that it and other energy companies received the incentives based on the amount of power produced over a ten year period. But spokesman Graham White also noted that the company, known for its pipelines and gas distribution services, has continued to build new wind projects – after the federal government stopped accepting new applicants for the funding – in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta, where it would have the largest facility in Western Canada.

Husky Energy received about $103 million in federal subsidies for biofuels and another $20.5 million from Natural Resources Canada to help one of its plants in Saskatchewan reduce pollution and enhance oil recovery, but noted that the economics of producing ethanol were challenging.

“Our ethanol operations are a small part of our overall business,” said spokesman Mel Duvall. “The federal and provincial subsidies are coming to an end and our focus is on doing what we can to improve the efficiencies of the plants and to develop new revenue streams so they remain viable.”

The financial records of Natural Resources Canada also show that Imperial Oil received about $150,500 from the federal government in 2009 to do research on biodiesel.

Putting the numbers in context, Natural Resources Canada spent about $60 million over three years, starting in 2007, to help British Columbia companies and communities cope with the Mountain Pine Beetle infestation which attacked forests in the western province and spread due to climate change and warmer winters.

The Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based think tank that researches sustainable development issues, said that the biofuels subsidies might have helped encourage local production, but that they weren’t as effective at reducing pollution as other programs such as incentives for renovations to lower energy consumption in homes and office buildings.

“Strictly from a greenhouse gas reduction perspective, there are better uses for this money,” said Ben Thibault, a renewable energy policy analyst at the think tank.

Subsidies by the numbers

Suncor: $134 million in support of biofuels production and wind energy projects.

2012-13: $27,720,000 for biofuels and $2,932,650 for wind power

2011-12: $34,692,697 for biofuels and $3,094,956 for wind power

2010-11: $17,425,577 for biofuels and $2,890,500 for wind power

2009-10: $23,139,735 for biofuels and $2,879,794 for wind power

2008-09: $13,763,071 for biofuels and $3,086,500 for wind power

2007-2008: $1,674,451 for wind power

Shell Canada: $120 million in support of Quest project to capture carbon pollution and bury it underground

Husky Energy: $124 million in support of biofuels production and ethanol plant.

2012-2013: $17,297,426 for biofuels

2011-12: $19,614,038 for biofuels and $1,103,831 for upgrades to ethanol plant in Saskatchewan

2010-11:$19,410,209 for biofuels and $12,299,538 for plant

2009-10: $30,443,632 for biofuels and $714,189 for plant

2008-09: $16,530,189 for biofuels

Enbridge: $23 million in support of wind energy projects.

2012-13: $6,264,382 for wind power

2011-12: $5,991,448 for wind power

2010-11: $5,577,308 for wind power

2009-10: $4,659,753 for wind power

2008-09: $287,266 for wind power

Imperial Oil: $150500 for study on biodiesel in 2008-09

International: $1.4 million in funding from Environment Canada to reduce pollution from oil and gas companies, including operations by state-owned oil companies in China and Mexico, as part of international climate change commitments.

]]>http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/harper-government-gave-big-oil-and-pipeline-companies-400m-to-go-green/feed2suncormikejdesouzaHarper government spent $331,389 on climate change rules that don’t yet existhttp://o.canada.com/business/harper-government-spent-331389-on-climate-change-rules-that-dont-yet-exist
http://o.canada.com/business/harper-government-spent-331389-on-climate-change-rules-that-dont-yet-exist#commentsWed, 11 Dec 2013 22:34:23 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=366907]]>OTTAWA — Environment Canada has spent at least $331,389 to develop long-awaited oil and gas regulations that are still under development, said Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq in a newly-released document tabled in Parliament.

The spending includes about $187,000 in payments for consultants that helped the department purchase oil and gas industry information, technological support as well as advice on how to proceed with the regulations that don’t yet exist.

The firms consulted include Navius Research Inc., a Vancouver-based firm that focuses on climate change policies and has done extensive research into options for putting a price on carbon pollution such as a carbon tax.

Environment Canada said it also consulted three other firms, Systematic Solutions Inc., Baker and O’Brien Incorporated, Kimacal Energy Strategies Limited as well as Benoit Laplante, an environmental economist and adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University’s School of Public Policy.

The spending also includes about $135,680 in travel costs, $4,772 for room rentals and related hospitality, and $3,643 for overtime wages, Aglukkaq said in the document, prepared in response to questions raised by Liberal MP Kirsty Duncan, a scientist who contributed to reviews of scientific literature by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Successive Conservative environment ministers in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government have pledged to deliver a plan to crack down on pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from industrial activity, but all have failed to meet their own deadlines to introduce a plan for the oil and gas sector.

On the international stage, after being criticized in 2012 for announcing it would withdraw from a legally-binding climate change treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, the government’s then-climate change ambassador, Guy Saint-Jacques, said Canada was doing its part to reduce the heat trapping emissions contributing to global warming by “working towards draft regulations for 2013” for oil and gas companies.

An Environment Canada report on its plans and priorities for 2012-13 said it would be able to finalize some of the oil and gas regulations in 2012, estimating it would spend $17.8 million between 2011 to 2016 on the rules for this sector, including $6.24 million in 2012-13.

The department was not able to confirm Wednesday whether it had spent all of this money as planned in 2012-13.

Environment Canada has created a joint committee with the Alberta government and oil and gas industry representatives to develop the new regulations, and had proposed several options to move forward.

Aglukkaq said earlier this month that she wasn’t “ready” to release the regulations, and wanted more time to ensure she could get them “right” for Canada.

Liberal environment critic John McKay suggested Aglukkaq’s own numbers were low, confirming that the regulations aren’t a government priority.

“This is a pathetic sum of money to spend on arguably the most important regulatory initiative that this government will spend in its entire mandate,” said McKay. “It speaks to the absence of activity on this file, and that those who are complaining about the government not being serious about greenhouse gas regulations are absolutely right.”

He noted that the absence of oil and gas regulations is also threatening industrial growth for Canadian companies that are counting on expanded pipeline routes for new market access, while fighting against climate change policies that could limit their markets in jurisdictions such as California and Europe.

He suggested that the government could help speed up the regulatory process by spending some resources to hire experienced negotiators to counter resistance from industry to new rules.

]]>http://o.canada.com/business/harper-government-spent-331389-on-climate-change-rules-that-dont-yet-exist/feed3Suncor oilsands plantmikejdesouzaSenior bureaucrats downplayed markets in U.S., Europe for Canadian resourceshttp://o.canada.com/business/senior-bureaucrats-downplayed-markets-in-u-s-europe-for-canadian-resources
http://o.canada.com/business/senior-bureaucrats-downplayed-markets-in-u-s-europe-for-canadian-resources#commentsSun, 08 Dec 2013 22:00:06 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=363840]]>OTTAWA — As the federal government continues to lobby for more access to Europe and the United States to sell Canada’s oil and other natural resources, an internal analysis reveals that senior bureaucrats see few opportunities for growth in these markets.

Instead, the analysis released to Postmedia News through access to information legislation, proposes a government-wide strategy, including diplomatic efforts abroad, to help Canadian companies sell their resources in emerging economies.

“Primary markets, United States and Europe, will be low/no growth markets for the foreseeable future,” said the presentation sent from Natural Resources Canada’s deputy minister, Serge Dupont, to his counterparts in the former departments of foreign affairs and the international development agency. “Market diversification for Canada’s natural resource sectors, in terms of goods, services and investment, (is) key to medium- and long-term growth. Domestic investment environment will shape global market opportunities.”

The federal government merged the foreign affairs department and the international development agency into a single entity in its last budget.

The presentation — entitled Prioritizing Canada’s Natural Resource Markets — which was originally prepared in December 2011, said that Canada’s “trading space” was moving toward the emerging economies and developing nations.

It highlights opportunities for Canadian natural resources and technology in Brazil, Russia, India, Chile, South Africa, Mongolia and Korea. In Brazil, where a recent Canadian spying controversy has erupted through documents leaked by former U.S. government consultant Edward Snowden, the Natural Resource Canada analysis recommended a strategy to promote Canadian mining interests, while addressing restrictions on investments.

At the time the presentation was drafted, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver was beginning his own international campaign to defend market access for Canada’s oilsands industry in Europe and the United States.

In the European Union, Oliver has lobbied government’s to reject climate change legislation that would penalize imports of heavy oil from Canada because of its global warming footprint. In the United States, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Oliver have lobbied the Obama administration to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, a proposed project that would expand access for Canadian oil to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

Natural Resources Canada was not immediately able to answer a question about whether it still agreed with its own analysis from 2011.

But it argued that American officials still estimate a need to buy foreign oil in the future.

“The United States will continue to be an important customer for Canadian oil, with projections from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (that) they will need to import 7.4 million barrels of oil per day in 2035,” wrote department spokesman Joshua Kirkey in an email.

He also reiterated the government’s longstanding argument that it doesn’t believe the European climate change legislation is based on science and that it discriminates against Canadian oil while going easy on other forms of energy imported in Europe.

The oilsands industry faces greenhouse gas rules imposed by the provincial government in Alberta, but the federal government has delayed introducing its own national standards or regulations to crack down on the emissions, which are considered to be the fastest growing source of carbon pollution in Canada.

]]>http://o.canada.com/business/senior-bureaucrats-downplayed-markets-in-u-s-europe-for-canadian-resources/feed1OlivermikejdesouzaEnvironmentalist praises Shell Canada over calls for climate change regulationshttp://o.canada.com/technology/environment/environmentalist-praises-shell-canada-over-calls-for-climate-change-regulations
http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/environmentalist-praises-shell-canada-over-calls-for-climate-change-regulations#commentsThu, 05 Dec 2013 20:02:04 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=363009]]>OTTAWA – An Alberta-based environmental policy research group is praising a major oil company for demonstrating “common sense” about the ongoing climate change policy debate in Canada.

Shell Canada’s president Lorraine Mitchelmore said earlier this week in Ottawa that her company would “welcome” new federal regulations to crack down on heat-trapping greenhouse gases from her industry.

Successive Conservative environment ministers have pledged to deliver comprehensive climate change policies for nearly eight years, but have missed their deadlines to deliver a plan for the oil and gas sector. Mitchelmore said if new federal regulations were introduced, they would pressure companies to develop technologies, while sending a message to the world that Canada is doing its part to fight climate change.

“The real choice is to lead in both energy and environment and to succeed as a country – or not,” said Mitchelmore in a speech to the Economic Club of Canada.

“You may accuse me of wanting it both ways, but I believe that one will only come with the other. That is the world in which we are living today. That is what I believe Canadians and the world are asking us to do.”

Ed Whittingham, president of the Alberta-based Pembina Institute, said Mitchelmore was “absolutely right” about the need for effective greenhouse gas regulations as soon as possible.

“She deserves full credit for saying so,” Whittingham said. “Her common sense comments were a breath of fresh air in the very polarized debate over oilsands development. Let’s hope she inspires others in the energy sector, and in government, to also acknowledge that the public’s environmental concerns are valid and deserve addressing.”

Mitchelmore also said that the oilsands industry, which is the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, should not be downplaying its climate change footprint.

“The argument that Canada should not do its part when it comes to climate change because we’re only responsible for a small percentage of global CO2 emissions is not one that I buy,” she said. “Yes, the oil sands represent only 0.1 per cent of global CO2 emissions. Yes, the oil sands represent less than half the emissions from the coal-fired plants in the state of Illinois. But we still have to do our part in tackling this global challenge.”

Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq said last week that the federal government wasn’t ready to introduce its regulations, and needed more time to ensure it got its plan right.

“We want to get this right for Canada and when I’m ready to release this information that will be released publicly,” said Aglukkaq in response to questions from opposition New Democrats and Liberals at a parliamentary committee.

Environment Canada recently released a report on Canada’s emissions trends showing that annual carbon pollution from the oilsands industry, the fastest growing source of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the country, is pushing an international climate change commitment by Prime Minister Stephen Harper out of reach.

Aglukkaq is the fifth federal Conservative environment minister to pledge regulations for the oil and gas sector after nearly eight years in government.

In 2012, Canadian negotiators publicly told the international community, in response to criticism over its withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, that it was “working towards draft regulations for 2013.”

A few months later, Aglukkaq’s predecessor, Peter Kent, said the government was “very close” to “finalizing” those regulations for oil and gas companies.

“She has to look through her notes and then says: ‘well it’s premature (to set a deadline for regulations),’ ” said Leslie. “Give me a break. That says to me that she has no idea, so I don’t know when we’re ever going to see them (regulations) if ever.”

The Harper government has introduced measures to protect forests and expand some parks, protecting the areas from development, a move that helps reduce emissions. It has also introduced regulations to control pollution from coal-fired power plants as well as from the tailpipes of vehicles on the road.

Aglukkaq told reporters that reducing greenhouse gases was important for Canada, but she dismissed recently released documents suggesting that oil industry lobbying was blocking progress.

“They have their views and there’s a process in place and we will examine their feedback as well,” said Aglukkaq, stressing that she was also trying to work with her provincial and territorial counterparts on regulations. “But my take on it is industry wants to do the right thing. They want to do their part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They want to be good environmental stewards as well so this is a partnership and we will move forward when we’re ready.”

In the parliamentary committee, Liberal environment critic John McKay told Aglukkaq that her comments about working with provinces and territories to address climate change were coming “a little late in the day” because of a pending decision by the Obama administration with economic implications for Canada on a pipeline expansion project.

McKay said that the Harper government’s failure to deliver oil and gas regulations, has turned the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would allow Alberta’s oilsands industry to expand and export more of its heavy crude oil to the Gulf Coast of Texas, into a proxy fight over climate change policy, that could affect the Canadian economy.

McKay also questioned recent budget figures released by Environment Canada showing that the department is consistently spending less than what it has in its budget by millions of dollars. McKay suggested this trend could indicate the government is trying to hide some of its budget cuts.

]]>http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/federal-government-not-ready-to-reduce-pollution-from-oil-companies/feed8oilmikejdesouzaFormer U.S. ambassador David Jacobson takes aim at climate change skepticshttp://o.canada.com/news/weather/former-u-s-ambassador-david-jacobson-takes-aim-at-climate-change-skeptics
http://o.canada.com/news/weather/former-u-s-ambassador-david-jacobson-takes-aim-at-climate-change-skeptics#commentsThu, 14 Nov 2013 20:35:56 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=348124]]>OTTAWA — Former U.S. ambassador David Jacobson is optimistic about progress in global efforts to tackle climate change. Recently in Ottawa to attend a panel discussion on climate and energy policies, organized by the Canada 2020 think-tank, Jacobson said some attitudes are shifting and U.S. President Barack Obama is prepared to take action.

Jacobson, who sat down with Postmedia News to talk about the political challenges surrounding the issue, expressed frustration about partisan debates preventing progress in the U.S. Congress. He didn’t want to speculate about the ongoing review of the Keystone XL pipeline expansion project, but noted that an evaluation is underway to look at whether it could exacerbate carbon emissions in the atmosphere.

But he has concerns that “climate-change deniers” are confusing the public about the basic facts and empirical evidence about the entire global warming issue.

Here’s an edited transcript of the interview.

Q: What kind of public appetite is there for action on climate change right now in the United States?

A: I think an important piece of the reason that the attitudes in the United States are less favourable toward this issue (than in Canada) is because the climate change issue has become hyper partisan. And the reason is there are an awful lot of folks in the United States who hear climate change deniers talking about how this whole thing is a hoax. And even regarding the empirical questions, just the facts, some folks are a little bit mixed up. So I think, to me, the most interesting political issue on this is the impact that the political process seems to be having on the perceptions and the opinions of Americans.

Q: Would Canada showing leadership have an impact on what the U.S. does?

A: To the extent that (if one country) does more, I think there is a perception in the other country that they’re with the program. And again, I talked earlier about the irony on this: that Canadians seemed to be more concerned on these issues than Americans seem to be. And I think if that’s well known, that will have an impact on the perceptions in the United States of how Canadians perceive climate change.

Q: In terms of the problem itself, you’ve mentioned the oilsands and how polls show Canadians have concerns about climate change. How concerned do you think the White House is now about the oilsands.

A: The one thing I can assure you of is that the president, the secretary of state and I am very concerned, just as the Canadian people are in (public opinion polls), with climate change. This is an important issue and it’s an issue that we all have to wrestle with and we have to figure out the right balance between our need for energy, which keeps the lights on in here, and keeps the heat on, because it’s getting cold outside, and our concern that we don’t wreck the climate and wreck the environment for our children and our grandchildren.

Q: How would you characterize the U.S. industry’s openness to regulations?

A: I think that the industry, like the public, is probably divided. And I can say this based on a number of conversations that I’ve had. There are some incredibly enlightened leaders in the energy industry, across North America and they understand the concern with carbon emissions.

There are some who, particularly on the climate change front, don’t buy it. But my sense is that balance is tipping, and that as a new generation of leaders come into the energy industry, particularly a younger generation of leaders, that they aren’t just saying that they’re doing these things for PR purposes. They are saying it because they believe it. They understand that if they do these things because they’re the right things to do, because they’re the responsible things to do, because they’re what they want to do to protect their families, that a lot of these issues will work out better.

Q: So do you think the Obama administration will have success when it wants to introduce its own oil and gas regulations?

A: There are two separate issues. One is, whether there’s a climate among the American people. Perhaps climate is not the right word. But is there a desire among the American people and are things going to get through Congress? Some of these things, the president can do without any additional congressional authorities. Some of them, he can’t. Congress, because it has the power of the purse, is able to meddle in all kinds of things. As we’ve seen, with respect to universal background checks for purchases of guns, 90 per cent of the American people were in favour of it and it didn’t pass. So sometimes, the political process, at least in the short term, is not as responsive as it ought to be. So we’re just going to have to see what happens.

Q: Are you optimistic about how the world is handling the challenge of climate change.

A: I think that in difficult times, as we’ve gone through over the last few years, it becomes harder to deal with some of these other issues. On the other hand, as I said, there is a perception that is changing, and this isn’t going to turn around overnight. It won’t, it can’t and you couldn’t deal with it anyway even if it did. But I do sense a shift. I sense that we’re moving in the right direction. Are we moving as quickly as some might want? No. Are we moving faster than others might want? Yes, probably. But we’re moving in the right direction and that makes me optimistic and things like the Canada 2020 study that we’re here to talk about today are evidence of that.

]]>http://o.canada.com/news/weather/former-u-s-ambassador-david-jacobson-takes-aim-at-climate-change-skeptics/feed0U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Jacobson. Photo by David Kawai, Postmedia NewsmikejdesouzaElizabeth May joins Afghanistan delegation at climate change talks in Polandhttp://o.canada.com/news/world/elizabeth-may-joins-afghanistan-delegation-at-climate-change-talks-in-poland
http://o.canada.com/news/world/elizabeth-may-joins-afghanistan-delegation-at-climate-change-talks-in-poland#commentsMon, 18 Nov 2013 23:00:17 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=350941]]>OTTAWA — Green leader Elizabeth May has joined Afghanistan’s delegation at an international climate change summit in Poland after the Harper government didn’t respond to her request to join the Canadian team.

May, who previously turned toward Papua New Guinea to be able to enter the meeting rooms at a 2011 climate change summit in South Africa, said Monday that she wrote to Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq in September to inquire about this month’s United Nations climate change summit in Poland.

But the opposition MP from British Columbia said in an interview that Aglukkaq and the government didn’t acknowledge her request, and as a result, May decided on her own to find a way to attend the summit, with her Green Party funding all of her expenses.

“Isn’t it sad?” said May. “Here I am in Warsaw because the government of Afghanistan thought I could be helpful in their delegation and the government of Canada didn’t even show enough respect to respond to a letter asking if I could be on the delegation.”

Without accreditation from Afghanistan, May could have participated in events on the sidelines of the conference, but would not be allowed in official negotiating sessions.

She said an Australian academic on Afghanistan’s delegation invited her since they have a small team of four people and could use help in following all of complex sessions and meetings ongoing simultaneously at the summit. But May added that she would not be speaking on Afghanistan’s behalf.

It is common at United Nations talks for developing nations to approach foreigners for support and expertise in their respective delegations.

May noted that Canada had a long-standing tradition, under previous governments, of including opposition parties in negotiations at international summits to represent the views of all Canadians. But she said this tradition changed in recent years.

In 2006, opposition Canadian MPs received accreditation as “observers” through environmental groups at a United Nations climate change summit that was hosted in Kenya. But in 2008, former environment minister Jim Prentice invited opposition MPs to join his delegation at the annual summit, held that year in Poland.

“Traditionally, the notion was when Canada went to an international meeting, our delegation reflected Canada, not the party in power,” May said, noting that former prime minister Brian Mulroney included a diverse representation of civil society groups at the 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil. “That was the pattern until Stephen Harper became prime minister.”

Aglukkaq wasn’t available for an interview Monday, and her office wasn’t immediately able to respond to questions about how it selected its delegation and what it thought about May’s letter of request.

But the minister’s office issued a statement saying that the Canadian government was “taking a leadership role” in addressing international climate change by focusing on economic and environmental efforts at home such as regulations to reduce carbon emissions from coal-fired electricity plants and vehicles, while investing money in support of climate change mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.

The statement coincided with two international reports, one from international environmental groups and the other from a Washington-based think tank called the Center for Global Development, that found Canada had one of the worst environmental and climate change records in the developed world.

Environment Canada also released a report this month stating that the country was drifting further away from Harper’s international climate change goal of reducing annual carbon emissions to 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020, and that it was unlikely to meet it because of rising emissions from the oil and gas sector.

The New Democrats and Liberals also said they requested to join Canada’s delegation, but received no response and decided not to pursue the matter.

“I’ve got to hand it to Elizabeth (May) for creativity and it is ironic that for a Canadian member of Parliament to be accredited at an international conference, one has to join in a delegation in a country (where) we’ve been having a war for the last 12 years,” said Liberal environment critic John McKay.

]]>http://o.canada.com/news/world/elizabeth-may-joins-afghanistan-delegation-at-climate-change-talks-in-poland/feed1maymikejdesouzaMost Canadians don’t know Stephen Harper withdrew from Kyoto climate agreement, says pollhttp://o.canada.com/technology/environment/most-canadians-dont-know-stephen-harper-withdrew-from-kyoto-climate-agreement-says-poll
http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/most-canadians-dont-know-stephen-harper-withdrew-from-kyoto-climate-agreement-says-poll#commentsWed, 06 Nov 2013 10:01:08 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=341213]]>OTTAWA — Three out of four Canadians are concerned about climate change impacts and many see a leadership vacuum when it comes to the federal government’s approach to the global issue, says a new survey to be released Wednesday by a think tank, Canada 2020.

But surprisingly, the survey results also revealed that 59 per cent of Canadians were not aware that the Harper government had withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol, a legally-binding international agreement signed in 1997 that requires developed countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

When asked whether Canada was still a part of the agreement, 41 per cent of respondents said “no” but 33 per cent said “yes” and 26 per cent of them were not sure.

But representatives of the Ottawa-based think tank said that the survey results show Canadians are prepared to discuss options for reducing emissions, including carbon pricing such as a tax or a free-market system that would require polluters to pay and allow greener companies to sell credits for reducing emissions.

“Canadians care and they want to see leadership, and they’re not afraid of some of the policy tools that have been mentioned,” said Diana Carney, an associate at Canada 2020. “So there is opportunity for politicians and other people to run with this if they do it in a way that’s positive.”

The poll was sponsored by the think tank and the Universite de Montreal and administered by Leger Marketing. It surveyed 1,502 adult Canadians by phone between Oct. 10 to Oct. 20, and is considered accurate within 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The results are being released to coincide with a new panel discussion Wednesday, featuring several political and environmental experts including former U.S. ambassador to Canada, David Jacobson.

Carney also noted that some of the poll numbers show that Canadians aren’t afraid of seeing the government sign international agreements without similar commitments made by large economies such as China and the U.S.

According to the survey, 57 per cent of respondents said they strongly agreed that “rich countries like Canada have a moral obligation to show international leadership by reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.”

“There is a sense that we should be doing something and signing an international agreement is one very obvious thing to do,” said Carney. “We haven’t bought into the notion that our participation is either too dangerous or too insignificant, or too whatever.”

Some other highlights from the survey:

A large majority, or 81 per cent of respondents, accept scientific evidence that global warming has occurred over the last four decades, and that 58 per cent – an increase from 43 per cent in 2011 – also accept scientific evidence that human activity is the main cause.

When asked to rate the Harper government’s performance, 45 per cent of respondents thought it was doing a poor job at protecting the environment and 50 per cent believed it was doing a poor job at showing leadership on global warming.

Environment Canada’s 2013 Emissions Trends report, which analyzed changes in greenhouse gases from different economic sectors and regions in the country, was released at the end of October,

It revealed that Canada was drifting further away from meeting Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s international climate change commitment to reduce carbon pollution, mainly due to rising emissions from oil and gas companies operating in the oilsands sector in the western part of the country.

But when asked by Postmedia News in late August whether the report, released in mid-summer over the previous years, was delayed, Natural Resources Canada and Environment Canada both offered vague explanations that said the report was not yet complete.

The internal emails appear to show that Oliver‘s office didn’t want the public to know that Natural Resources Canada had finished its own work on the report in July.

Here is the internal response from Natural Resources Canada to questions from Postmedia News on Aug. 23, 2013, prepared within an hour after they were asked about their own calculations about emissions related to land use changes and forests:

“NRCan has completed an update for two sub-sectors of land use, land-use change and forestry (managed forests, afforestation)… The information was provided to Environment Canada in July. We cannot speak to this year’s data until the report is published. For more information please contact Environment Canada.”

And here’s the “approved” response, sent several hours later in an email by Oliver’s spokesman, David Provencher:

“The information for two sub-sectors of land use, land-use change and forestry (managed forests, afforestation) was provided to Environment Canada. Environment Canada is currently preparing the 2013 Canada’s Emissions Trends report. Therefore, they are in best positioned (sic) to comment on this report.”

Provencher also sent copies of this email to other members of Oliver’s office, including chief of staff Chris Woodcock, a former issues management adviser in Harper’s office who has also been in the news lately over this story.

When asked to explain the difference between the “proposed” response and the “approved” message, Oliver’s office referred the question to the department.

“The Government responded with a factual answer,” wrote Natural Resources Canada spokesman Paul Duchesne in an email on Monday. “Environment Canada is the lead on the emissions report.”

]]>http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/joe-olivers-office-edited-answers-from-department-on-climate-change-report/feed2Natural Resources Joe OlivermikejdesouzaConsumer advocacy is a populist but risky gambithttp://o.canada.com/news/national/consumer-advocacy-is-a-populist-but-risky-gambit
http://o.canada.com/news/national/consumer-advocacy-is-a-populist-but-risky-gambit#commentsTue, 15 Oct 2013 19:29:43 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=329038]]>OTTAWA — In placing consumer protection at the heart of its new agenda, the Conservative government has signalled it will not be outbid on the question of who truly represents the interests of the middle class. It’s a classic flanking manoeuvre, intended to stop Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau in his tracks. It also betrays more than a whiff of desperation. For of all the issues the Conservatives could have made their own, few contain more sheer political peril than this. It is a gusher that, once tapped, will be difficult to cap.

It’s a given that Wednesday’s address is no routine road map, even as throne speeches go. It’s a blueprint for the 2015 election. It will set the battle lines for the next two years. And it will tell us to what degree Prime Minister Stephen Harper and those around him, who have been rocked by a year of almost incessant disasters, perceive the threat to their longevity posed by these failures. Until now, every opportunity for a reset has been missed or ignored. This is one of the last, best chances they’ll get.

On procurement — the Byzantine process by which Ottawa buys hardware for the military — nothing short of a stand-alone procurement agency, managing a system shorn of political interference, will impress the government’s critics. That’s because of the disaster of the Royal Canadian Air Force fighter-replacement project. In 2010, you will recall, the Conservatives hitched their star to a sole-source plan to buy 65 F-35 fighter-bombers, for $9 billion. In late 2012, driven by life-cycle costs that had skyrocketed past $46 billion, that plan was shelved and replaced with a new “options analysis.” The damage to the government’s credibility was enormous.

Justice-wise, the Conservatives discovered in August that Canadians weren’t much bothered by the fact that the Liberal leader had admitted to smoking pot while an MP. For years, the Conservatives have been hammered for their ideological, punitive and not-very-effective approach to marijuana prohibition. Their tough-on-crime agenda works best, at a popular level, when it focuses on protecting the rights of victims of violent and sexual crimes. Therefore, we should expect new measures to crack down on sex criminals, and scant or no mention of pot.

Ottawa has routinely missed its own targets for establishing greenhouse-gas-emissions-reduction regulations for the oilpatch. It can no longer do so, because U.S. President Barack Obama is hammering on the front door, requiring the Harper government give him something — anything at all — that he can use as cover to approve construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Watch for new measures on climate to be accompanied by a clean-water and pollution-control push, intended to blunt the NDP and Liberal charge that the Harperites have sold their souls to Big Oil.

There has been speculation since last spring that the PM intends something bold for the Senate — possibly even abolition. He’s hampered by the need to await the Supreme Court’s ruling, expected next year, on how that can be done. But this doesn’t prevent him from establishing a new, hard timetable for long-sought reforms — term limits and elections, to name two — using the threat of abolition as a cudgel. More than that, the government needs to signal broader accountability measures focused on bringing greater transparency to how both the Senate and the Commons spend money. That is the only way the Conservatives can put themselves even marginally ahead of the still-unfolding Mike Duffy mess.

That leaves the broadly leaked consumer agenda; if not a consumer’s bill of rights, then a basket of user-friendly measures to give ordinary Canadians a leg up on the large corporations on whom we most rely in daily life. This will be the glue that holds the new strategy together. It’s smart politics; Canadians are deeply, thoroughly sick of shoddy service from airlines and telcos, banking fees, and the like. Anyone who travels in the United States can see how superior customer service is there, generally speaking. So this is bound to be popular, perhaps even highly popular — at least at the start.

The risk is simply this: Consumer advocacy is the equivalent of going nuclear, for a populist-oriented regime. It guarantees that every call-in show, letters to the editor page and news-site comment forum will be chock-a block with complaints, from now until voting day. It stands to reason that many of those complaints will go unsatisfied.

So, what are the odds of the federal government getting caught in the backdraft, assuming not all goes as planned or promised, and that big consumer companies find workarounds to any new restrictions? A betting person would have to say, good to excellent. In other words it’s a high-stakes, high-risk gambit — a swing for the fences. The Conservatives know this. But they’re doing it anyway. That shows, more than anything else, how deeply worried they are, as they assess the debris of the past 12 months.

In a short televised interview on CTV’s daily political show, Power Play, Leona Aglukkaq suggested that scientific observations were not as important as the Harper government’s priorities in its new role as chair of a group of Arctic nations.

When asked whether the ice was melting in the Arctic, considered by climate scientists to be part of the evidence of global warming, Aglukkaq said there may or may not be changes underway.

“There was a report that came out yesterday, I have not received a copy of that but there’s always a debate around science and what’s changing,” Aglukkaq told the host, Don Martin, in the interview which aired on Wednesday. “But I think what’s really important during our chairmanship that I want to bring forward to the international Arctic council regions is that Arctic people, people that live in the Arctic become experts and are engaged in that… Because we live in that environment every day. We are seeing the changes every day or no changes – what have you – and we have valuable information to contribute to research.”

Climate change contrarians have seized upon recent data showing Arctic summer sea ice was higher in 2013 than a record-breaking low reported in 2012, describing this as evidence that global cooling is underway even though the data has confirmed a steady decline in the ice cover over the past few decades.

Aglukkaq’s office was not immediately able to provide a comment, but later sent an email after this story was posted, asking Postmedia News to change what it had reported.

“Minister Aglukkaq was not casting doubt on climate change,” wrote spokeswoman Amanda Gordon in an email. “Is it possible to correct the story?”

When asked by Martin if she had personally observed changes in the Canada’s north, Aglukkaq, who represents the riding of Nunavut in Parliament, sighed before saying it was “debatable” whether the Arctic was warmer, explaining that northerners experienced a cold summer in general with snow in some areas and warmer weather elsewhere.

Martin followed up by asking if that indicated a changing climate if not climate change, prompting Aglukkaq to laugh and say: “But it’s also important to look at science and use science to make our decisions as best as we can and but to also continue to work with people in the north.”

Gordon wrote that the interview was conducted last month and that Aglukkaq’s comments were related to information published by the National Snow and Ice Data Center. This research confirmed the downward trend in summer Arctic sea ice but did not suggest there was any debate about what was happening.

The minister’s office also offered a general explanation of Aglukkaq’s comments without getting into specifics, saying that she was traveling and unable to give an interview.

“Scientific debate regarding our understanding of climate change and its effects on Canada, particularly the North, is what Minister Aglukkaq was referencing,” Gordon wrote.

Since her appointment in July, Aglukkaq’s office has failed to respond directly to questions from Postmedia News asking whether she believes scientific evidence justifies further action to stop the causes of climate change and adapt to its impacts.

In the CTV interview, Aglukkaq appeared to be reluctant to speak about climate change, correcting herself after almost using those words to describe her participation at a recent conference in Oslo, Norway of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants.

“I was in Oslo, just recently at the climate ch- ah climate conference, ah environment ministers conference, sorry,” she said toward the end of the interview.

This report said that “human influence has been detected in the warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes.”

The assessment, approved by virtually all governments around the world, including the Harper government, said that human activity, mainly through greenhouse gases released from the consumption of fossil fuels as well as deforestation and other land-use changes, had “very likely contributed to Arctic sea ice loss since 1979.”

This July 4, 2012 file photo provided by Ian Joughin shows surface melt water rushing along the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet. (AP Photo/Ian Joughin)

NDP environment critic Megan Leslie said the minister’s comments were “reckless” and associated with a “small fringe that continues to deny the science of climate change.” Leslie also said that Canada’s international credibility was eroded because of the Harper government’s environmental policies and that the comments would “further isolate” the country on the world stage.

The office of Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau also reacted later, saying that Harper needs to answer for what it described as Aglukkaq’s “alarming” comments. Trudeau’s office said Canadians deserved to know whether the prime minister agreed with her views about climate change.

Aglukkaq’s department, Environment Canada, has predicted that the planet will warm faster than the consensus view reached by the panel, projecting average global temperature increases of at least of two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2050.

The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, a federal advisory panel established by the government of former prime minister Brian Mulroney with a mandate to bring together business and environmental interests, predicted that doing nothing about climate change could cost the Canadian economy up to $43 billion in losses per year by 2050 due to impacts of global warming. The panel also said governments could find economic opportunities by promoting a shift away from fossil fuels to clean energy as part of an emerging green economy sector, estimated to be worth about $3 trillion by 2020.

The advisory panel, which had a $5 million annual budget, was shut down by the Harper government a few months after it produced its economic analysis and its Internet website was later erased. The panel’s reports moved over to Library and Archives Canada.

Data compiled by the National Snow and Ice Data Center, based at the University of Colorado Boulder, revealed that summer Arctic sea ice in 2013 was more than one million square kilometres below the average observed between 1981 and 2010.

A graph from the National Snow and Ice Data Center showing recent observations about summer Arctic sea ice.

Aglukkaq also said the environment was important to people in the Arctic since they continue to depend on wildlife to feed their families.

“So it’s important for us to continue to protect our water and our land and our air because we depend on the background that feeds us. So I think my new role here fits in very well and I’ve said many times, that I come from a unique part of Canada. I grew up living off the land and I bring a different perspective to this file, I think, given that I come from an environment and culture that, to this day, depends on the land.”

Other members of Harper’s cabinet have also openly questioned scientific evidence about climate change, including Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, who promoted Canada’s oilsands industry in an April interview by suggesting that scientists had “recently told us that our fears (about climate change) were exaggerated.”

At the time, Oliver was also unable to name the scientists or research, supporting that statement.

A few months ago, Aglukkaq, then as health minister, took over chairmanship of the eight-nation Arctic Council, signing a statement that recognized the planet was facing an “urgent need” to reach a legally-binding deal to prevent human activity from causing average global warming of more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

This statement expressed concerns that global greenhouse gas emissions were “resulting in rapid changes in the climate and physical environment of the Artic with widespread effects for societies and ecosystems and repercussions around the world.”

In internal briefing notes from the summer of 2012, Environment Canada said that Canadians were experiencing greater warming than most other regions of the world, with an average temperature increase of 1.6 degrees Celsius in 50 years.

“Climate change is the most serious environmental issue facing the world today and carries with it significant impacts on human health and safety, the economy, natural resources, and ecosystems in Canada and throughout the world,” said the briefing notes, prepared for Bob Hamilton, the department’s deputy minister. “There is also increasing recognition that natural resources are an important component of economic growth, along with physical and human capital, and that environmental damage and natural resource degradation can have important economic costs.”

The Conservative government is easing Canada’s energy efficiency regulations for light bulbs, in a move that will align standards with the United States and provide more consumer choice — but allow less-efficient bulbs and result in smaller energy savings and greenhouse gas reductions.

Proposed changes announced Friday to federal energy efficiency regulations set to take effect in 2014 would now permit less efficient incandescent halogen bulbs — which are allowed in the U.S. but would not have met new Canadian regulations — to be sold in Canada.

The mercury-free incandescent halogen bulbs closely resemble and work like the traditional incandescent bulbs that will slowly disappear from stores, but are more efficient. However, they still chew up more power than energy efficient compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs).

Ottawa still plans on phasing out the traditional, inefficient incandescent bulbs under the new regulations, which have already been delayed two years.

The 100- and 75-watt replacement incandescent bulbs manufactured on or after Jan. 1, 2014, will no longer be able to be imported into Canada or shipped between provinces.

Similarly, 60- and 40-watt traditional incandescent bulbs manufactured on or after Dec. 31, 2014 won’t be allowed (although bulbs manufactured prior to those dates can continue to be sold in Canada after the new rules take effect until stock is depleted).

The government maintains the proposed changes would meet consumer demands for more lighting choices, allow for greater economic integration with the U.S. and also addressing concerns about mercury contained in the more efficient compact fluorescent lamps.

However, the proposed changes to the rules would reduce the long-term expected energy savings and greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions, compared to the original regulations scheduled to take effect in 2014.

“This approach (under the new regulations) may result in reduced energy savings and GHG reductions compared to the current standards but would facilitate greater consumer choice and reduce regulatory burden,” says the summary of the proposed regulations released Friday.

By 2025, the federal government expects the greenhouse gas reductions from the proposed, softer regulations would be as much as 2.4 megatonnes less per year than under the current standards that would not permit the incandescent halogen bulbs (although the GHG reductions depend on how much consumers choose incandescent halogen bulbs versus the CFL bulbs).

Lighting accounts for approximately 10 per cent of a home’s electricity use.

In 2008, the federal government amended its energy-efficiency regulations to phase out inefficient light bulbs. The new standards were set to take effect in January 2012 for 100- and 75-watt bulbs, and December 2012 for 60- and 40-watt bulbs.

But in 2011, the government delayed the new rules by two years until 2014 to consult more with Canadians and allow more time to establish programs to dispose of the CFL bulbs.

Like the old-style light bulbs, the incandescent halogen bulbs that would now be allowed are less expensive to purchase but only last up to 1,095 hours, compared to 8,000 hours for the efficient compact fluorescent bulbs.

While efficient bulbs cut a homeowner’s energy bill and last much longer, they can cost several dollars more in store, and the government expects “many consumers would opt for lower purchase cost light bulbs.”

Phasing out the old incandescent bulbs will still save Canadians potentially billions of dollars in energy costs, says the government.

In a “high-end scenario” — where incandescent halogen bulbs have 25 per cent of the market and CFLs 75 per cent — the government estimates that between 2014 and 2025, Canadians would pay $388 million more for efficient light bulbs, but see $2.8 billion in energy and GHG savings.

Under a “low-end scenario” — where incandescent halogen bulbs have 75 per cent of the market and CFLs 25 per cent — Ottawa expects Canadians would pay $1.1 billion in increased costs for the light bulbs, but see more than $1.8 billion in energy and GHG savings.

Yet, the government estimates that by easing the energy efficiency standards, the energy and GHG savings would be anywhere between $189 million and $1.9 billion lower than the current regulations.

“By aligning energy efficiency standards for light bulbs with the U.S., we are lowering costs and reducing the burden for Canadian businesses while providing consumers with the choice they need,” Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said in a statement.

Jesse Row, senior adviser with the Pembina Institute, an environmental research group, says he expected the federal government would harmonize regulations with the United States.

While the regulations will be watered down somewhat, he said the broader effort to phase out the traditional incandescent bulbs is a good step forward that will help consumers and the environment.

“What we have right now is essentially a delayed regulation or no regulation at all, so certainly getting rid of traditional incandescent (bulbs) is a good thing,” Row said.

]]>http://o.canada.com/news/national/government-relaxes-new-green-light-bulb-rules/feed0Light bulbsjasonfeketeEnvironment Canada predicts two degrees of warming by 2050http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/environment-canada-predicts-two-degrees-of-warming-by-2050
http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/environment-canada-predicts-two-degrees-of-warming-by-2050#commentsFri, 27 Sep 2013 19:27:59 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=319394]]>Environment Canada‘s most optimistic projections for climate change predict even faster warming of the atmosphere than the consensus view reached this week by an international panel assessing the latest scientific evidence.

Reached by telephone in Sweden where he contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, senior Environment Canada scientist Greg Flato said that even in the best-case scenarios for limiting growth of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions, his federal department’s computer models show average global warming of about two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2050.

In a report released on Friday, the IPCC said it’s likely that temperatures will exceed this two-degree Celsius threshold by 2100, though not necessarily by 2050. But it anticipates some scenarios in which warming from 2081 to 2100 could be as little as 0.3 degrees Celsius, relative to the 1986 to 2005 average temperatures, or as high as a maximum of 4.8 degrees Celsius above the temperatures of the 1986 to 2005 period by 2100.

Governments from around the world have agreed that the two-degree threshold is a dangerous tipping point for the atmosphere. If temperatures rose by that much, climate change would threaten to disrupt ecosystems and accelerate ongoing rising of sea levels and melting of ice in the Arctic; and would increase the likelihood of extreme weather events, such as longer and more frequent heat waves as well as heavier rainfall in some areas and droughts in other locations.

The governments have agreed to slash greenhouse gas emissions to avoid this tipping point as part of an international commitment made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other world leaders at a 2009 summit in Copenhagen, Denmark to protect the planet’s environmental and economic systems.

While Flato said there were different projections about the impacts of carbon emissions in the atmosphere, he also praised the IPCC process, noting that its mandate was to take a collection of different scientific research and reach a consensus.

“Our (Environment Canada) model, in isolation, produces results that are in roughly the two-degree warming range in the mid-century,” he said, describing Environment Canada’s computer modelling centre as a world-class facility. “But if you look at all the models together, which is the important thing to do, there is a range and that range is important.”

Flato, a scientist and manager at the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis in Victoria, B.C., explained that this approach allowed the IPCC to clearly identify areas where the science is not settled, and clearly state the areas of consensus.

Flato also noted that the assessment report of the IPCC demonstrates progress in research identifying the links between specific levels of carbon emissions from human activity and the resulting temperature levels.

This could provide governments with information to help them decide how much fossil fuel, such as oil or coal, should be left in the ground and what will happen to temperatures if the energy is consumed.

“That’s a new concept and a new result and it’s described in this report,” said Flato. “And that does provide a way to very simply look at the amount of emissions that could be accepted by the atmosphere for any particularly temperature level.”

The panel said greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere had reached “levels unprecedented in at least 800,000 years” and that it was “extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.” The report defines “extremely likely” to mean at least 95-per-cent certainty.

The IPCC also addressed concerns about an apparent “hiatus” of observed warming over the past 15 years, noting that the long-term trends still show progressive warming over the past three decades and that global warming is “unequivocal.”

Environment Canada research scientist Xuebin Zhang said in a conference call organized by a non-profit Canadian-based public policy group that evidence is also increasing that links specific trends to climate change, such as warming temperatures in the air and water.

Graham Cogley, a professor emeritus of geography from Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., noted that the latest assessment confirms research that 93 per cent of excess heat in the planet’s climate system is being absorbed by oceans, about three per cent goes into melting ice, another three per cent into the ground and only one per cent ends up in the atmosphere.

“So when we talk about global warming as scientists and as a community of citizens, (and focus on air temperatures) we’re making a fuss about what is really just a side show,” he said. “Nearly of all of what we have done has gone into the oceans … and the oceans are going to hit back.”

He said this excess heat means that sea levels will continue to rise for a staggering 2,000 years because the oceans take that long to respond to changing conditions.

A number of international leaders, including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and British Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Edward Davey said the IPCC report highlights the urgency of immediate action from all governments.

In a statement, Canadian Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq said Canada had been playing a leadership role in addressing the challenge by introducing regulations to reduce emissions from vehicles and coal-fired power plants.

The United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988 to produce assessments for governments of the latest scientific evidence about global warming. Scientists volunteer their time to write and review chapters in the reports that provide summaries of climate change impacts, future risks, options for adaptation and mitigation. Since its creation, IPCC authors have come under attack by some who accuse them of exaggerating evidence or even making it up. But the assessments are subject to a review by governments that verify whether it is based on scientific literature. The review process also allows for comments and a discussion to determine the degree of confidence in each statement.

What does the report say?

The latest IPCC report, the first of three volumes to be released over the next few months, says it’s clear that the atmosphere and oceans have warmed in recent decades, reducing average snow and ice cover, and increasing sea levels, corresponding to a rise in greenhouse gas emissions to levels unprecedented for nearly 800,000 years.

It calculates that combined land and ocean surface temperatures have increased by about 0.85 C between 1880 and 2012.

Ocean warming dominates the observed warming, accounting for 90 per cent of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010. The report says it’s virtually certain that the upper 700 metres of the ocean warmed in that period. The sea level has risen by 19 centimetres between 1901 and 2010.

The report says it has high confidence that both Greenland and Antarctic sea ice have been losing mass, while spring snow cover and Arctic sea ice have decreased over the past two decades.

The report also notes temperature reconstructions showing that some warming occurred in various regions between the years 950 and 1250, but it has “high confidence” that the regional warming from the past was not as widespread as warming observed in the late 20th century.

The report represents the strongest warning from the IPCC that human activity is linked to global warming since the panel was first created.

How do we know the new report doesn’t exaggerate?

The 2007 report estimated that temperatures had warmed at a rate of about 0.13 C per decade from 1951 to 2005, and at a rate of about 0.2 C per decade since 1990.

The new report says that the warming per decade since 1951 is now 0.12 C, a difference of about 0.01 C, and that warming over the past 15 years has been at a rate of about 0.05 C per decade. This last estimate appears to be one-quarter of of the previous short-term warming trend estimated in the 2007 report. That doesn’t look like exaggeration. The report says, though, that these numbers do not affect the long-term trend showing that each of the past three decades has been warmer than the last and that the 1983-2012 period was likely the warmest 30-year period in the last 1,400 years.

How are world leaders and politicians reacting to the report?

Canadian Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq responded to the report by highlighting some of the federal government’s recent actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles and coal-fired power plants. She also used the opportunity to criticize the former Liberal government for not doing enough to address the problem, and the Opposition New Democrats over their policies. Other world leaders such as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the British Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change have responded by saying the report highlights the urgency of concrete action to tackle rising greenhouse gases and global warming.

]]>http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/environment-canada-predicts-two-degrees-of-warming-by-2050/feed11Climate changemikejdesouzaCanadian embassy hosting party for carbon pricing conferencehttp://o.canada.com/technology/science/stephen-harpers-government-organizing-a-party-at-carbon-pricing-conference
http://o.canada.com/technology/science/stephen-harpers-government-organizing-a-party-at-carbon-pricing-conference#commentsWed, 25 Sep 2013 15:37:43 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=317525]]>Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government appears to be allowing one of its embassies to host an international party for advocates of carbon pricing.

The embassy was not immediately able to answer questions about the reception, but a spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird told Postmedia News that the reception was not organized by the federal government and that it was “strictly” an Alberta government event.

“While the event is happening on Embassy grounds, this is because we share office space with the Government of Alberta, who can use event rooms when we’re not using them,” said spokesman Rick Roth in an email sent after this story was published online. “We also ask you to remind your readers that the Harper government opposes a carbon tax.”

But the Alberta government also distanced itself from the event, saying through a spokesman that it was “asked to assist in finding a venue” by the association and that it was the association’s event.

A source familiar with the conference also said that no public funds were being spent.

Cap and trade systems require governments to set a limit on pollution or emissions from industry, while allowing companies that go over their limit to buy credits from others that can certify they are reducing emissions. The price of the credits in a cap and trade system is set by the market, based on supply and demand.

They later described the approach as a “job-killing carbon tax.”

The federal Conservatives previously promoted cap and trade as part of their environmental policies in their 2008 election campaign platform. But they later changed their minds prior to the 2011 federal election, describing the approach as a “job-killing carbon tax.”

An emissions trading system is different from a direct carbon tax on pollution that goes into government revenues.

Meantime, Quebec has embraced the idea of cap and trade, joining an emerging market with California that is seeking other jurisdictions to participate in the efforts to reduce the pollution that traps heat in the atmosphere and contributes to climate change.

Quebec Environment Minister Yves François Blanchet is also attending the Washington conference and is scheduled to deliver a keynote address on Oct. 1, right before the Canadian reception.

The conference will also review the market design of the California-Quebec system, efforts by sub-national governments to take action on climate change, as well as reviewing international progress in tackling climate change and efforts to inform the public about scientific evidence about climate change.

The Harper government has been challenged by the Obama administration to demonstrate its efforts to reduce carbon emissions from industry as part of its climate change policies, in the context of a pending decision about whether the US will allow the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project to proceed.

This project, proposed by Alberta-based energy company TransCanada, would allow the oilsands industry to rapidly expand production by giving it increased access to refineries in the gulf coast of Texas. The increased access would also allow the oil companies to sell bitumen, the tar-like heavy oil found in natural deposits in Alberta, at higher prices.

TransCanada is listed as a member of the emissions trading association, and two oil companies, Shell and Chevron, are listed as gold sponsors of the conference.

In recent months, ministers in the Harper government have accelerated advertising, marketing, lobbying efforts, events and trips to the United States to defend the oilsands industry and promote the pipeline project.

Bitumen is considered to be one of the dirtiest forms of energy because it requires large amounts of water and energy to extract from the ground and refine, resulting in major disruptions to ecosystems.

One company, CNRL, is trying to get to the bottom of a series of mysterious leaks plaguing an oilsands operation more than 200 kilometres northeast of Edmonton. It has been recently ordered to partially drain a lake as part of efforts to clean up damage caused by the leaks.

The oilsands industry is the fastest growing source of carbon pollution in Canada and its overall emissions are projected to be larger than total emissions for all provinces by 2020, except for Ontario.

Government and industry officials have touted their progress in reducing the average pollution from each barrel of oil produced. Scientific calculations by Environment Canada, shared here with Natural Resources Canada, show that the progress is less than previously estimated, and that, as of 2012, there had been no improvement for three years.

Successive federal governments have promised to regulate carbon pollution from the industry for more than a decade, but have not introduced any concrete plans to do so.

The Alberta government has also introduced its own industrial regulations that put a price on emissions, and it has proposed tougher regulations in its negotiations with the federal government.

Meantime, the Harper government has started to roll out other regulations to cap pollution from coal-fired power plants and tailpipe emissions from vehicles. It has estimated that these regulations would result in billions of dollars in costs that would be offset by other savings.

]]>http://o.canada.com/technology/science/stephen-harpers-government-organizing-a-party-at-carbon-pricing-conference/feed3Prime Minister Stephen Harper wears the Canadian Ranger sweater after he was bestowed honorary Canadian Ranger status in Gjoa Haven, Nunavut on Wednesday, August 21, 2013.mikejdesouzaMounting evidence of global warming? Six questions about IPCChttp://o.canada.com/uncategorized/mounting-evidence-of-global-warming-six-questions-about-ipcc
http://o.canada.com/uncategorized/mounting-evidence-of-global-warming-six-questions-about-ipcc#commentsMon, 23 Sep 2013 20:59:57 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=316581]]>Scientists working on an international assessment of the latest scientific research about climate change said Monday that there is mounting evidence that human activity is contributing to global warming, despite some gaps in knowledge.

Here are some key questions and answers about the panel and its assessment.

What is the IPCC?

The United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988 to produce assessments for governments on the latest scientific evidence about global warming. Scientists volunteer their time to write and review chapters in the reports that provide summaries of climate change impacts, future risks, options for adaptation and mitigation. Since its creation, IPCC authors have come under attack by some who have accused them of exaggerating evidence or even making it up. But every line in the assessments is subject to a review by governments that verify whether it is based on scientific literature. The review process also allows for comments and a discussion to determine the degree of confidence in each statement.

The first part of the panel’s fifth assessment report is scheduled for release on Friday, following a final review of evidence of climate change and its causes.

What will this week’s report say?

Qin Dahe, a glaciologist from China who co-chairs a working group that is producing the report, opened the final review process Monday by saying that the scientific evidence about the human influence on global warming has “strengthened year by year, leaving fewer uncertainties about the serious consequences of inaction, despite the fact that there remain knowledge gaps and uncertainties in some areas of climate science.”

The other co-chair, Thomas Stocker, a professor of climate and environmental physics from Switzerland, said the assessment is based on millions of measurements “which permit an unprecedented and unbiased view of the state of the Earth System” compiled in a document “with no compromises to scientific accuracy.”

Draft versions of the assessment, according to media reports, say scientists now conclude it’s “extremely likely” — that is, a 95 per cent probability — that humans are the main cause of climate change observed since the 1950s, primarily through their burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal. The draft said there was “high confidence” that the changes were responsible for warming the ocean, melting snow and ice, raising sea levels and changing some climate extremes, Reuters reported on Monday.

The draft represents the strongest warning from the IPCC that human activity is linked to global warming since the panel was first created.

I read on the Internet that scientists admitted they had overestimated global warming, so how can we know these guys aren’t exaggerating in the new report?

The 2007 report estimated that temperatures had warmed at a rate of about 0.13 C per decade from 1951 to 2005, and at a rate of about 0.2 C per decade since 1990.

Draft versions of the 2013 assessment reportedly say that the warming per decade since 1951 is now 0.12 C, a difference of about 0.01 C, and that warming over the past 15 years has been at a rate of about 0.05 C per decade. This last estimate appears to be one-quarter of of the previous short-term warming trend estimated in the 2007 report. But three different climate scientists contacted by Postmedia News say it is misleading to compare those numbers, saying it is normal to see fluctuations in trends over shorter periods of time, such as within a single decade.

Reuters said Monday that the draft version of the assessment says, with deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, warming could be held to an increase this century ranging from 0.3 C to a maximum of 4.8 C, with sea level rises of between 26 to 81 centimetres, before the year 2100. A range of temperature increases of 1.1 to 6.4 C, projected in the 2007 report, was based on older computer models, the news agency reported.

Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, described other recent media reports suggesting that forecast warming trends were being downgraded by scientists as “nonsense.”

“It’s just people randomly picking out numbers… without any kind of understanding of whether they were comparing apples to oranges.”

Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist who was elected this year as a Green Party member of the British Columbia legislature, contributed to one of the chapters of the assessment and said that some warming trends may not be as strong as expected in recent years because of heat being absorbed in oceans. But he said that some “vested interests” are trying to make it seem as though scientists are toning down their earlier forecasts to create a “distraction” from the evidence.

What do Canadian government scientists say about all this?

Environment Canada said in an internal 2012 presentation that climate models “clearly” show that all emissions scenarios will lead to global warming of about two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2050. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other world leaders have signed an international agreement that requires countries to avoid passing this threshold based on evidence that it would cause widespread disruptions to life on Earth with significant repercussions for the global economy.

The department declined interview requests with its climate scientists Monday, explaining that it wouldn’t consider any media requests prior to the IPCC report’s release on Friday.

I also heard that global cooling is about to happen. Isn’t the ice recovering in the Arctic?

Some media outlets have recently reported a change in ice cover over the past year, without providing the context of longer-term trends.

Arctic sea ice for the summer reached a record low in 2012, according to the Colorado-based National Snow and Ice Data Center. Sea ice levels were higher over the summer of 2013, but the total was more than one-million square- kilometres below the average level observed between 1981 and 2010, according to the centre, based at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Weren’t there mistakes in the last IPCC report?

A section of the 2007 IPCC report incorrectly said that scientific evidence had concluded Himalayan glaciers could melt away by 2035. The IPCC faced a public relations nightmare following revelations of the mistake, attributed to quoting sources from a media report instead of a scientific journal. At the time, the IPCC said it regretted the poor application of its well-established review procedures in the drafting of the assessments. But at the time, senior IPCC officials downplayed the mistake, saying it didn’t damage the overall credibility of the 3,000-page report, while noting that the melting of glaciers is accelerating and will affect the supply of water in major mountain ranges where more than one-sixth of the global population lives.

But anticipating more scrutiny, most climate scientists have suggested that the final report in 2013 will use more conservative language throughout all of its chapters, to avoid repeating the same mistake.

As the sea levels around the globe rise, researchers affiliated with the National Science Foundation and other organizations are studying the phenomena of the melting glaciers and its long-term ramifications.

]]>http://o.canada.com/uncategorized/mounting-evidence-of-global-warming-six-questions-about-ipcc/feed1climatemikejdesouzaAs the sea levels around the globe rise, researchers affiliated with the National Science Foundation and other organizations are studying the phenomena of the melting glaciers and its long-term ramifications. Has Harper government delayed climate change progress report?http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/has-harper-government-delayed-climate-change-progress-report
http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/has-harper-government-delayed-climate-change-progress-report#commentsFri, 23 Aug 2013 16:59:57 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=299673]]>OTTAWA-The federal government isn’t answering questions about what’s holding up the release of an annual report on Canada’s progress in fighting climate change – an analysis normally released in mid-summer.

Environment Canada said this week that it was still working on the report and that no release date had been set.

Natural Resources Canada said it made its own contribution to the analysis, providing information to Environment Canada on emissions related to land use, land-use change and forestry, but declined to say when it shared its calculations.

“Environment Canada is currently preparing the 2013 Canada’s Emissions Trends report,” said spokesman Joshua Kirkey, in an email sent on Friday. “Therefore, they are best positioned to comment on this report.”

The last report, released on Aug 8, 2012, revealed that Canada’s climate performance was improving slightly with annual greenhouse gas emissions projected to be 19 per cent above a target agreed to by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in international negotiations.

The federal statistical agency also announced earlier this month it was delaying the release of a major report on income, housing and shelter costs after uncovering a mistake in its calculations.

Statistics Canada declined to say whether it had any discussions with or direct exchanges of information with Environment Canada about the emissions report. But a spokesman suggested the department might have used some of the agency’s research.

“As with many government reports, departments use our data,” said Statistics Canada spokesman Peter Frayne. “The Environment Canada report is not a joint report, but a sole product of Environment Canada.”

Here are a few key points about the emissions trends report:

Who uses this report? Economists and environmentalists describe the annual analysis as an essential tool that measures the impact of government climate change policies in homes, buildings, industry, transportation and other sectors of the economy, allowing Canadians to plan the best ways to ensure that economic development is sustainable, while eliminating policies that don’t work.

“It’s the best tool we have to understand Canada’s progress, or lack thereof, towards our national climate target,” said Clare Demerse, director of federal policy at the Alberta-based Pembina Institute. “Last year’s edition showed that we have a huge gap to close, with Canada on track to miss its target by more than the current emissions of every car, SUV, plane and train transporting passengers in Canada.”

Why does the government need this information? Environment Canada says that climate change is the most serious environmental issue facing the world today, carrying with it significant impacts on human health and safety, the economy, natural resources and ecosystems at home and throughout the world. A draft version of an international assessment of the latest scientific research on global warming, to be discussed at a conference in September, said that evidence is getting stronger that human activity is causing unprecedented changes to the climate.

What about those magic trees? At an international climate change summit in 2011, hosted by South Africa, Canada and other countries negotiated and adopted new accounting rules allowing them to count the carbon absorbing properties of forests to lower annual emissions counts. Internal government records say this accounting change – described as a “preliminary analysis” – allowed Canada to report a 38 per cent improvement in its climate performance in its 2012 report.

What about oil and gas companies? Last year’s emissions trends report confirmed that western Canada’s oilsands industry was the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada and that its climate change footprint would be greater than those of all provinces except for Ontario in 2020. With mounting pressure from the Obama administration for Canada to demonstrate it is doing its part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in the context of a proposed major pipeline project under review, Environment Canada has said it is still working on developing those regulations in partnership with industry and the Alberta government.

Is there communications spin involved in these reports? About two weeks before the emissions trends report’s release in 2012, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver was told in a memo that Environment Canada was still “considering different media strategy options” for how and when the report would be announced. Natural Resources Canada also said that both departments had prepared “responsive lines” in anticipation of questions from journalists. Similar lines would normally be developed for newly-appointed Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq.

Documents obtained from the Privy Council Office and Environment Canada show that, despite the fact the Harper Conservatives have repeatedly criticized the idea of a carbon tax, accusing the NDP of backing such a scheme, the federal government has supported a different form of carbon pricing.

The Privy Council Office is the central department in the government that supports the prime minister’s office. The PCO documents, obtained under access-to-information information, highlight calls from the World Bank for “putting a price on carbon for developed countries” and say “Canada could support other countries implementing this proposal.”

They also say: “Canada supports the development of new market-based mechanisms that expand the scale and scope of carbon markets.”

The notes were prepared for the November 2011 G20 summit attended by Harper, one month before Canada announced plans to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement with legally binding carbon-reduction targets. The PCO records also said that Canada wanted to expand markets that require polluters to pay and allow other companies to profit from deploying technologies or other methods to reduce emissions in the atmosphere.

The records from Environment Canada say that “well-designed environmental policy” can support jobs and growth while avoiding “serious” and “significant” impacts to health, safety and the economy. The records also noted Canada, as the only country to fail in its Kyoto commitments, was facing mounting international pressure to demonstrate its own concrete actions to address climate change.

Harper’s office referred questions about both sets of records to Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq, who said through a spokeswoman that the government does not support a carbon tax. The spokeswoman repeated a message the government has put out in the past: that an NDP climate change proposal from the last election to raise billions of dollars by auctioning off pollution permits as part of a market-based carbon pricing scheme — was a tax on gas, groceries, electricity and everything else.

The NDP has not advocated for a carbon tax and campaigned against the idea in the 2008 federal election. But all major federal political parties in Canada supported different forms of carbon pricing — either through a direct tax or a market-based system — in the 2008 campaign. The Conservatives later decided to favour binding regulations in each industrial sector instead, because of the failure of the U.S. Congress to pass legislation creating a carbon market.

Several provinces, including Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec, have introduced or are implementing different forms of carbon pricing or direct taxes on greenhouse gas pollution. In B.C., a tax is applied directly to the purchase or use of fuel, with revenues returned in the form of other tax reductions.

Aglukkaq’s office told Postmedia News on Monday that Canada was an Arctic nation “playing a leadership role in addressing climate change” with its own regulations to reduce emissions from vehicles as well as coal-fired power plants, reducing greenhouse gases in the country for the first time in history.

The federal government has estimated that its regulations have billions of dollars in both costs and benefits for Canadians.

Environment Canada has said it still aims to meet Harper’s new target of reducing annual emissions by 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020, but it has repeatedly missed its own deadlines to regulate the fastest growing Canadian source of greenhouse gases in the oil and gas industry and is facing “greater international pressure to demonstrate concrete action and to outline how Canada’s national emissions targets will be met.”

“Climate change is the most serious environmental issue facing the world today and carries with it significant impacts on human health and safety, the economy, natural resources, and ecosystems in Canada and throughout the world,” Deputy Environment Minister Bob Hamilton was told in a transition binder after he was appointed in July 2012. Meantime, Hamilton was also told that strong climate change policies could help create jobs and growth.

“There is a growing evidence base supporting the idea that well-designed environmental policy, including GHG emission reduction policies, can also support economic objectives, in areas such as innovation, improved energy and resource productivity, and opportunities in global clean technology markets,” said Hamilton’s briefing notes. “There is also increasing recognition that natural resources are an important component of economic growth, along with physical and human capital, and that environmental damage and natural resource degradation can have important economic costs.”

]]>http://o.canada.com/news/canada-supports-global-carbon-pricing-government-records/feed2Stephen HarpermikejdesouzaDisappearing species and enforcement warnings to oil company flagged in federal recordshttp://o.canada.com/news/disappearing-species-and-enforcement-warnings-to-oil-company-flagged-in-federal-records
http://o.canada.com/news/disappearing-species-and-enforcement-warnings-to-oil-company-flagged-in-federal-records#commentsFri, 16 Aug 2013 21:16:29 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=296690]]>OTTAWA — Disappearing caribou, whooping cranes with “oily underbellies” and more than a dozen warning letters about alleged environmental infractions to a major Canadian energy company are among the concerns about oilsands development highlighted in newly released federal briefing material obtained by Postmedia News.

The documents, released through access-to-information legislation, also described ongoing concerns about water disruption and contamination, as well as the multibillion-dollar economic benefits from western Canada’s natural deposits of bitumen, which are considered to hold one of the world’s largest reserves of oil.

Bitumen, the tar-like heavy oil that is derived from those deposits, requires large amounts of energy and water to extract, either through mining or the injection of steam deep underground. The federal government also estimates that oilsands operations are the fastest-growing source of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in Canada that contribute to global warming.

The Environment Canada documents noted that Alberta oilsands development is continuing at an accelerating rate with $125 billion in capital investments announced for the period between 2006 and 2015.

Although it estimated that annual government revenues from the oil industry were $24 billion in 2007 and $26 billion the following year, briefing notes prepared for Environment Canada’s former deputy minister, Paul Boothe, for a May 2012 meeting “to discuss matters of mutual interest” with a vice-president from Suncor, said the department was concerned about environmental impacts of individual projects as well as cumulative impacts of development.

In terms of protecting endangered species, the briefing material noted that two Suncor projects had been approved for expansion by regulators, despite occurring in caribou range and that they “may infringe on critical habitat” identified in a national plan to protect the iconic species.

“The science is clear — all of Alberta’s boreal caribou are at elevated risk of becoming extirpated (locally extinct), including those in the oilsands region,” said a separate briefing document prepared for a meeting of federal and Alberta deputy ministers in February 2012.

Earlier this week, the Alberta government was praised by environmentalists for restricting logging activity, northeast of Jasper National Park, protecting caribou habitat.

The briefing notes for the Suncor meeting also mentioned recent evidence showing that some whooping cranes, an endangered species, were flying directly over and landing near the mineable oilsands region.

“In conjunction with recent photographs from the USA displaying cranes with oily underbellies, this raises concern with cranes landing in tailings ponds,” said the scenario briefing note for the meeting.

Boothe was also urged to remind Suncor, at the meeting, that the government’s recent changes to environmental laws had loosened some regulations under the Species at Risk Act, allowing industry to get longer-term permits to operate in critical habitat instead of being forced to renew their permits every three to five years.

In terms of enforcement of environmental laws and regulations, Environment Canada said in the documents that it had conducted 407 inspections of Suncor operations over three years since 2012, resulting in 17 warning letters, three investigations, and one conviction when Suncor pleaded guilty in December 2010 to spilling toxic waste water into the Steepbank River two years earlier.

A Suncor spokeswoman said the company always discloses incidents to the appropriate regulators when they occur on project sites, striving to achieve environmental goals that go beyond minimum requirements for compliance.

“We think the fact there were more than 400 inspections shows that we are a highly scrutinized industry — and rightly so,” said Suncor’s Kelli Stevens. “Moreover, we value the regulations as well as the enforcement. Assigning appropriate consequences when we don’t live up to our obligations is a key aspect of driving better performance in our industry.”

Environment Canada was not immediately able to answer questions about the nature of its warning letters to Suncor.

]]>http://o.canada.com/news/disappearing-species-and-enforcement-warnings-to-oil-company-flagged-in-federal-records/feed3suncormikejdesouzaAlberta, B.C. launch plan to expand oil, gas exportshttp://o.canada.com/technology/environment/alberta-b-c-launch-plan-to-expand-oil-gas-exports
http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/alberta-b-c-launch-plan-to-expand-oil-gas-exports#commentsFri, 26 Jul 2013 19:28:43 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=287433]]>NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ont. – The premiers of British Columbia and Alberta have launched a joint plan to expand exports of oil, gas and other resources, laying the groundwork for new pipeline projects to the west coast.

Wrapping up discussions at the Council of the Federation annual retreat of Canada’s 13 premiers, Christy Clark and Alison Redford said they had instructed their senior bureaucrats to start working together on policies to promote the exports and allow their fossil-fuel industries to gain access to new markets in Asia, driving up the prices for their resources.

“We understand in British Columbia how important it is that resources get to the coast,” said Clark, standing next to Redford. “We are getting our natural gas to the coast and off to Asia, hopefully selling it at a much, much higher price. We understand the economics of that. And Alberta understands that social licence is something that’s important for moving resources so we’re going to work through some of those details together and you can’t do that if you don’t sit down and talk.”

Redford said the discussions were at a preliminary stage that would go beyond talks about Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project, now under review by an independent panel. She said the provinces would also discuss which projects could be viable in the future.

“One of the things that’s been really exciting this year, I think right across Canada, but particularly in Alberta and British Columbia, is we’re seeing a number of people who are really coming to terms with the fact that responsible resource development is what’s going to allow us to continue to have economic growth in Canada,” Redford said.

B.C. and Quebec were the only provinces that declined to sign on to a progress report, released this week by premiers, on a national energy strategy that was spearheaded by Redford, establishing a set of common values to promote co-operation and growth as well as social and environmental responsibility.

Clark said her government still had concerns about the risks of the existing Northern Gateway proposal and was opposed to the project, which if approved, would create a new link between Alberta’s oilsands region and the west coast of British Columbia, opening the door to more expansion in the Alberta industry.

Environmental groups and First Nations communities have opposed most pipeline expansion projects from the oilsands region, arguing that the industry needs to first crack down on its environmental footprint and heat-trapping emissions which contribute to global warming before it expands.

But both premiers noted that they were elected with mandates to create jobs and grow the economy, explaining that their provinces were economic engines for the entire country.

“Alison and I have been having this (discussion) together as premiers, we want to take the next concrete step in that journey and have our officials sit down and start really grinding through some of the details to find out where we can find common ground, where we disagree and where we need to try and work a little harder,” said Clark.

The B.C. premier added that improving Coast Guard response to emergencies on the coast would also be a key factor and a failure to boost its ability could be an obstacle to economic growth.

“The federal government has been stripping down Coast Guard response in British Columbia, not adding to it,” Clark said. “So they’re going in the wrong direction on that and if we want to protect our coast, they’re going to have to step up to the plate on that.”

Redford also said she had interesting discussions with New Brunswick and Quebec about a separate pipeline proposal to bring Alberta’s oil to eastern Canadian refineries and that each jurisdiction was now reviewing details of the project.

For her part, Quebec Premier Pauline Marois said she was happy to have discussions and exchange information with her colleagues about energy policies, but did not want to endorse a national strategy with elements that could interfere with Quebec’s constitutional jurisdictions.

]]>http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/alberta-b-c-launch-plan-to-expand-oil-gas-exports/feed5Christy Clark and Alison RedfordmikejdesouzaMajor threats to biodiversity loom on Canadian economy: federal briefingshttp://o.canada.com/technology/environment/major-threats-to-biodiversity-threaten-canadian-economy-federal-briefings
http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/major-threats-to-biodiversity-threaten-canadian-economy-federal-briefings#commentsWed, 17 Jul 2013 19:49:48 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=282676]]>OTTAWA — Environment Canada is developing a new strategy, in the midst of multimillion-dollar cuts, to expand its capacity to evaluate the economic value of natural ecosystems, parks and wildlife, according to internal documents obtained by Postmedia News.

The internal briefing notes, prepared for the department’s deputy minister, Bob Hamilton, estimated that more than 13 per cent of Canada’s Gross Domestic Product — an economic measurement of the market value of all goods and services in the country — depended on healthy ecosystems. But the notes warned that several “major threats” — including irresponsible development of resources, invasive species, climate change and pollution — were causing “significant biodiversity loss.”

“Conserving biodiversity is critical to the long-term health, prosperity and security of Canadians,” said the documents, released through access to information legislation.

“The wise management of genetic resources is increasingly seen as essential to innovation in key economic sectors such as agriculture, forestry and the pharmaceutical industry.”

The briefing notes, which also highlighted efforts to cut $60 million from the department’s budget including scientific research activities, said that biodiversity was contributing to “essential” ecosystem goods and services such as the production of food and fibre, carbon sequestration, clean air, clean water, disease and pest control as well as recreational, aesthetic and spiritual benefits.

“Healthy and resilient ecosystems are one of our best defences against a changing climate,” said the notes prepared in the summer of 2012 when Hamilton was appointed as Environment Canada’s top bureaucrat.

By comparison, the federal government has estimated that the oilsands industry, also considered to be the fastest growing source of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, represents about two per cent of the country’s economy.

The briefing notes said that the government had expanded protected parks and marine areas by 54 per cent since 2006. It also estimated that Parks Canada, the agency overseeing national parks, was contributing more than $3 billion to the Canadian economy, generating the equivalent of about 42,000 jobs.

Newly minted Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq could not be reached for comment.

He also cautioned that specific numbers should be viewed with skepticism.

“The entire economy depends on ecosystems in some sense or another,” said Heintzelman, the director of the Center for Canadian Studies at Clarkson University.

“It’s so tightly interlinked and it’s very difficult to separate.”

Heintzelman also said it would be difficult to compare the value of oilsands development with the value of forests.

“The oilsands extraction in a given year may be two per cent of Canada’s GDP, but to say that it’s more or less important than the role of forests in Canada is, I think, a tricky statement,” said Heintzelman, the Fredric C. Menz scholar of environmental economics at the university. “Forests have a lot of different benefits and you have to be very careful to capture them all.”

For example, he said forests could have various economic benefits for timber, paper products as well as benefits that are harder to measure in dollar figures such as recreational value or their role in protecting endangered species.

“Our entire well-being, economic and otherwise, relies on healthy functioning ecosystems,” said the advisory panel in a 2011 report about the economics of climate change entitled “Paying the Price.”

The briefing notes also said that the department introduced a strategy in 2011 to strengthen its economic analysis capacity in a division of about 50 employees because of “increasing pressures” to deliver high quality research in support of “ambitious” climate change and clean air policies.

Stewart Elgie, a professor of law and economics at the University of Ottawa, suggested that the government’s numbers underestimated that value of natural ecosystems in providing services such as clean air and water. He also said public policies should consider hidden subsidies given to fossil fuel burning energy industries such as coal, which he said haven’t been paying for all the environmental and healthcare costs associated with their pollution.

“What’s the air that you breathe worth to you?” asked Elgie, who was named in the briefing notes as part of a department strategy to engage with academics. “What’s it worth to you to have safe drinking water? What’s it worth to have healthy soil that can produce food? Those things are almost incomparable in value. Our whole life depends on them.”

The public service department that supports the prime minister’s office – the Privy Council Office – said Monday that it didn’t send anyone to the meeting, convened by the former deputy minister at Environment Canada, Paul Boothe, who also invited the heads of Canada’s spy agency, the Department of National Defence and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to attend. A spokeswoman for PCO wasn’t immediately able to say whether it followed up on information shared during the session

The discussion, outlined in documents that were marked “secret” but declassified for release through access to information legislation, predicted that the world would likely reach a tipping point in global warming by 2050, missing an international target agreed to by Harper and other international leaders at 2009 negotiations in Copenhagen as part of a deal to avoid irreversible damage to the planet’s ecosystems and its economy.

“If greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated, models predict (the) 2 C warming target, agreed to in Copenhagen will be exceeded by mid-century,” said a presentation delivered by Environment Canada at the July 5, 2012 meeting.

“To avoid surpassing it, global CO2 emissions must level off immediately, and decline to negative values before end of century (implying net CO2 extraction from atmosphere), or other means of moderating warming would be needed.”

The Environment Canada presentation warned of several potential impacts of temperature increases, including increases in extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, heatwaves and cyclones as well as impacts on coastal cities, food security and biodiversity loss.

A graph from Environment Canada’s report shows the country’s average temperatures were 1.5 degrees Celsius above normal in 2011.

Most representatives on the list of invitees, including the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service and the Department of National Defence, said Monday that they were trying to track down information about their role in the closed-door discussion. Natural Resources Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans referred questions to Environment Canada, but the latter department’s Gatineau headquarters were closed for the Quebec holiday Monday.

U.S. President Barack Obama, who is slated to deliver his own climate change plan in a speech on Tuesday, led international discussions in Copenhagen, which resulted in the voluntary agreement that aims to prevent global warming of more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

“There’s no single step that can reverse the effects of climate change, but when it comes to the world we leave our children, we owe it to them to do what we can,” said Obama in a White House video posted online last weekend. “This is a challenge that affects everyone and we all have a stake in solving it together.”

Obama is expected to announce new regulations, similar to Canada’s standards to reduce pollution and greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants, as well as charting a clean energy strategy for the American economy as part of his plan.

In Canada, the special meeting, spearheaded by Boothe, was one of the first major government-wide discussions of “geo-engineering” – described by Environment Canada as a deliberate large-scale intervention in the planet’s climate to counteract or reverse the warming effects of heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. It was also the last major meeting convened by Boothe before he retired from the public service to accept a position as a director of a policy centre at Western University’s Ivey Business School.

An internal memorandum from Natural Resources Canada, which listed the invitees, said that there was increasing international interest in geo-engineering options because of “challenges” in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, combined with rapid signs of warming in areas such as the Arctic.

Geo-engineering methods could include adding iron to oceans to enhance their absorption of carbon dioxide, sulphur injections in the atmosphere or satellite mirrors to block or reflect solar radiation or large-scale afforestation.

Calgary-based climate scientist David Keith, a professor of applied physics and public policy at Harvard University, asked Boothe in a March 2012 email to examine the issue, noting that there was an emerging debate about international research coordination and regulations surrounding geo-engineering methods.

Keith, who was cleaning out his basement Monday damaged by the recent flooding in southern Alberta, said in an interview that geo-engineering options and their potential impacts need to be studied as an option to help protect vulnerable populations in developing countries from the effects and extreme weather events linked to existing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But he stressed that the planet would still need to reduce the human-produced greenhouse gas emissions, linked mainly to consumption of fossil fuels, as part of a comprehensive response to global warming.

“No amount of geo-engineering in the future will help if we don’t cut emissions,” Keith said.

Keith and other climate scientists, including John Stone, an Ottawa-based climatologist, have said that extreme rain events that recently led to flooding in Calgary and other parts of the world are consistent with projections from climate change science.

“When the atmosphere gets warming, it holds more water vapour, and so when it does rain or snow, it does so in much greater quantities than otherwise,” said Stone. “So this flooding should be a wake up call.”

Temperature records released by Environment Canada in a spring report on greenhouse gases, submitted to the United Nations, estimated that average Canadian temperatures have reached levels of up to three degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in recent years.

]]>http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/canadian-spy-agency-top-security-officials-attended-secret-meeting-on-climate-dangers-in-2012/feed3WEA Alta Floodingmikejdesouzaenvironment canada, global warmingFederal government planned ‘strong’ PR campaign to promote oil industryhttp://o.canada.com/news/federal-government-planned-strong-pr-campaign-to-promote-oil-industry
http://o.canada.com/news/federal-government-planned-strong-pr-campaign-to-promote-oil-industry#commentsFri, 21 Jun 2013 20:10:49 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=268966]]>OTTAWA — Days before announcing Canada would withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the federal government drafted plans for a “strong and coordinated” public relations campaign and major regulatory reforms to promote oil and pipeline industry expansion, say personal notes drafted by the top bureaucrat at Natural Resources Canada.

The notes, included in an email that Deputy Minister Serge Dupont sent to himself on Dec. 8, 2011, provided highlights of the government’s strategy to “advance a strong and coordinated advocacy and communications plan, with early pre-positioning for legislative and other actions.”

Dupont also wrote about offering “support” for the Northern Gateway project, a pipeline proposed by Alberta-based Enbridge, to allow the oilsands industry to expand exports to Asian countries through the British Columbia coast.

“Developing access to growing Asia Pacific market for Canada’s energy resources, and in particular oil sands is an urgent matter of national interest,” he wrote in the email.

“Proactive policy and program measures could support Northern Gateway and future pipeline projects to west coast.”

The email, released through access to information legislation, came after Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet decided to withdraw from the international legally binding treaty on climate change – a decision that was announced Dec. 12, 2012 by Environment Minister Peter Kent.

Dupont wrote in the email, described by his department as a set of personal notes, that “pre-positioning” the government’s arguments was “necessary” to “frame” the public dialogue in advance of public hearings” on Jan. 10, 2012, for the Northern Gateway project.

Following Dupont’s suggestions, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver then released a letter — prior to the start of the hearings — that accused environmental groups of supporting a “radical agenda” to “hijack” Canada’s regulatory system with funding from foreign special interests.

Oliver’s January 2012 letter kicked off a process that overhauled Canada’s environmental laws, introduced in about 400 pages of legislation, that were adopted with limited debate in Parliament a few months later. Those changes cancelled about 3,000 environmental reviews of new projects including hundreds involving pipelines and fossil fuels, but Kent has said they improved environmental protection by allowing the federal government to focus its resources on reviewing projects with the greatest potential impacts.

The legislation, granting some demands from oil and pipeline industry lobbyists, came along with a federal budget that cut millions of dollars of funding for scientific research examining environmental impacts of industrial activity on air, water and wildlife.

The federal government has described the oilsands industry as the fastest growing source of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in Canada that contribute to global warming, and its estimates suggest the industry would prevent the country from meeting a national target agreed to by Prime Minister Harper in international negotiations.

It also estimates the sector represents about two per cent of the Canadian economy, including tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in tax revenues.

Dupont wrote that the strategy should also underscore the government’s commitment to environmentally and socially responsible resource development, world-class safety standards, more efficient regulations and open dialogue and cooperation with Aboriginal communities.

In recent months, the federal government has spent millions of dollars in advertising promoting Canada’s natural resources and its efforts to strengthen environmental protection.

Dupont’s notes said additional pipeline capacity, including the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to the gulf coast of Texas, would be needed by 2015 to 2018 to support the growth and sales of oil companies.

Federal government officials have avoided making direct public statements in support of the Enbridge project to avoid interfering with the ongoing independent hearings and review process, but a spokeswoman for Natural Resources Canada said the notes from Dupont were consistent with the government’s goal of promoting both efficiency and environmental protection at the same time.

“The word ‘support’ is consistent with creating a system that puts in place timely, efficient, and effective project reviews, while strengthening environmental protection, and enhancing consultations with Aboriginal Peoples,” wrote spokeswoman Jacinthe Perras in an email response to questions.

Oliver’s office and the department were not immediately able to answer questions asking how the strategy had helped build support for oil industry expansion and pipelines.

The British Columbia government announced earlier this month that it opposed the current proposal to build the Northern Gateway pipeline, and some industry advocates, including Conservative Sen. Richard Neufeld, a former B.C. energy minister, believe the project has little chance of proceeding. A decision by the U.S. government on the Keystone XL pipeline proposal has also been delayed, but other potential proposals are emerging for pipelines linking Alberta’s oilsands industry to markets and refineries in eastern Canada and the northeastern United States.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers declined to comment about its assessment of the federal government’s strategy in the context of Dupont’s notes.

“We have never seen these documents and we really cannot speak to the government’s documents,” wrote Geraldine Anderson, in response to an email from Postmedia News that sent the association a copy of Dupont’s email.

]]>http://o.canada.com/news/federal-government-planned-strong-pr-campaign-to-promote-oil-industry/feed7EdmontonmikejdesouzaStephen Harper’s government withholds details of $16-million PR campaign for oil industryhttp://o.canada.com/technology/environment/stephen-harpers-government-withholds-details-of-16-million-pr-for-oil-industry
http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/stephen-harpers-government-withholds-details-of-16-million-pr-for-oil-industry#commentsWed, 22 May 2013 19:57:48 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=252593]]>OTTAWA — The Harper government is declining to explain how and where it is spending millions of taxpayer dollars on advertising to promote oil, gas and pipeline companies as well as other Canadian natural resources.

Facing nearly four hours of questions from opposition MPs this week, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver also declined to provide specifics on a training program, worth up to $500,000, for his department’s scientists and other officials, “designed to help them communicate with the public and to do so in a way that is accessible to the public.”

Overall, Oliver said his department wanted to spend up to $16.5 million on advertising in the upcoming year, with details made available “at the appropriate time.”

“This is a critical moment in the development of our natural resources, and therefore we have allocated a significant amount of money for advertising,” Oliver told a special committee studying spending estimates in the House of Commons on Tuesday evening.

NDP natural resources critic Peter Julian said that the new spending represents a 7,000 per cent increase in advertising budgets at Natural Resources Canada since 2010-2011.

Oliver said a key part of the latest advertising was aimed at promoting the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, a multibillion dollar project proposed by Alberta-based TransCanada, that would link Canada’s oilsands industry to refineries on the gulf coast of Texas. Canadian and American oil companies are lobbying the Obama government to approve the pipeline in order to support oilsands expansion and jobs.

Oliver declined to say how much money was being spent in the U.S., or in Europe where the Harper government is lobbying against climate change legislation requiring a reduction in heat-trapping greenhouse gases from transportation fuels. He also declined to say whether any advertising money would be spent to promote renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.

In March of 2010, federal and Alberta government officials met with oil and gas industry CEOs to discuss “upping their game” for oilsands outreach and communications as part of a renewed strategy — promoted by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former staffer, Bruce Carson — to “turn up the volume” on public relations and show that “issues are being addressed and we have the right attitude,” according to internal federal records previously released to Postmedia News.

The NDP’s Julian denounced the multimillion-dollar campaign, describing it as “political advertising.” He also criticized the need to spend taxpayer dollars to train scientists on public speaking, in the context of an ongoing investigation by a parliamentary watchdog looking into allegations that the government is muzzling its scientists from speaking publicly about their research.

“The idea that there would be some kind of formal media muzzling of scientists is something that most Canadians would profoundly disagree with,” said Julian.

Nearly three years after a major spill of diluted heavy oil from the oilsands in Michigan, Alberta-based Enbridge is still facing orders from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to clean up the remaining pollution. In Canada, Oliver said, government scientists were studying the issue and didn’t have answers.

“I said they are conducting research,” said Oliver. “How would I know what the precise results of that research would be?”

But Garneau said that the government should have these answers if it wants to promote development projects such as pipelines to the west coast to expand exports of Canadian oil overseas.

“This is irresponsible,” said Garneau. “First you do your science.”

Opposition MPs also attempted to question Oliver’s grasp of climate-change science in the wake of recent comments casting doubt on scientific evidence that humans are contributing to global warming that could cause irreversible damage to the planet’s ecosystems.

When asked if he believed recently observed above-average global temperatures confirmed that climate change was occurring, Oliver spent a few seconds shuffling through papers on his desk before agreeing.

“I do not know what all this belief business is about,” he said in response to a question from Linda Duncan, an NDP MP from Edmonton. “We have said that climate change is a pressing global problem, and we are acting to deal with it. The nature of our policy response is different from that of the opposition parties.”

Natural Resources Canada told Postmedia News on Wednesday that it would try to answer questions about its public relations and communications training spending as soon as possible.

The department subsequently emailed Postmedia News explaining that details of the $16.5 million in advertising would be published at some point in the future. It also said that the special training program for scientists and staff was required under the government’s public relations policy and that the program’s budget would not exceed $400,000 at Natural Resources Canada.

]]>http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/stephen-harpers-government-withholds-details-of-16-million-pr-for-oil-industry/feed0Joe OlivermikejdesouzaWebsite urges Stephen Harper to get his facts straight on oilsandshttp://o.canada.com/technology/environment/website-urges-stephen-harper-to-get-his-facts-straight-on-oilsands
http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/website-urges-stephen-harper-to-get-his-facts-straight-on-oilsands#commentsThu, 16 May 2013 17:07:41 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=249516]]>OTTAWA — Environmental groups say that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government needs to get its facts straight about the oil industry.

A coalition of groups from Canada, the United States and Europe recruited some high-profile scientists and academics as they launched a new “reality” website Thursday.

The online offensive was targeting a government and industry multimillion dollar public relations campaign, described by environmental groups as a cover up.

“There has been a great deal of intentional and sometimes, unintentional misinformation circulating around on the industry and its impacts and the climate impacts ,” said Thomas Homer Dixon, a professor from the University of Waterloo’s Environment Faculty and director of the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation. “It’s very important that if we’re going to have a full democratic debate about the implications of this industry for Canada and the world that we start from a shared platform of agreed facts.”

Screen capture of the website on May 16, 2013.

A new government website promoted earlier this week by Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said that the oilsands industry, which requires massive amounts of energy and water to extract natural deposits of heavy oil buried in sand in western Alberta, had lowered its greenhouse gas emissions by 26 per cent since 1990.

The industry has, in fact, seen its heat-trapping carbon pollution grow by 267 per cent between 1990 and 2011, according to the latest data released by Environment Canada. That pollution is projected to continue its exponential growth over the next decade, putting Canada’s international climate change commitments, agreed to by Harper at international negotiations in 2009, out of reach.

Canadian oilsands producers have reduced emissions per barrel by an estimated 26 per cent over the same time period mainly due to improvements in efficiency, as well as by exporting the heavy oil and moving part of their global warming footprint to processing facilities in the United States. But there has been little improvement in emissions per barrel over the past few years.

The website launch coincides with Harper’s latest trip to the U.S. to promote oilsands expansion and the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project. It also follows similar web pages launched by industry lobby groups such as the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

The federal and Alberta governments, in partnership with the oil companies, have launched an improved scientific monitoring plan to track local impacts of oilsands development, and they have also pledged to deliver new regulations this year to address the industry’s carbon pollution.

The new website, sponsored by a network that includes partners such as Greenpeace, Quebec-based Équiterre and Toronto-based Environmental Defence, also highlights recent warnings that Canada’s dependence on the oil industry could lead to billions of dollars in stranded assets and punishing debt burdens.

It suggests that the only way the oilsands industry can thrive is if global policies fail to adequately crack down on the heat-trapping pollution that contributes to global warming. Scientists say that humans must dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, mainly produced from burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal, in order to avoid serious impacts to ecosystems and the economy.

“I think it’s really important to note that the Harper government and oil industry plans to rapidly expand the oilsands pose serious risks to our environment and our economy,” said Tzeporah Berman, a spokeswoman for Forest Ethics Advocacy. “Their attempts to hide the real impacts from the Canadian public, from U.S and European decision-makers are reprehensible and will be seen as one of the largest attempted cover-ups in Canadian history.”

The groups said all of the facts on their website, including details about impacts on human rights, land, wildlife, air and water, include references to sources following a review by a committee of experts.

They plan to distribute their material to thousands of politicians in Canada, the U.S. and Europe in the coming days.

]]>http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/website-urges-stephen-harper-to-get-his-facts-straight-on-oilsands/feed7mikejdesouzaScreen capture of the website on May 16, 2013.Stephen Harper accelerates foreign efforts to promote energy and tradehttp://o.canada.com/business/money/stephen-harper-accelerates-efforts-to-promote-energy-and-trade
http://o.canada.com/business/money/stephen-harper-accelerates-efforts-to-promote-energy-and-trade#commentsFri, 10 May 2013 19:45:33 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=246419]]>OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper and senior members of his cabinet are accelerating efforts to promote free trade and Canada’s energy exports through an international charm offensive, arguing that economic prosperity is on the line.

With decisions imminent on climate-change legislation and free-trade negotiations in Europe, as well on whether to approve a major U.S. pipeline, the prime minister and his team have been multiplying their foreign trips to boost their case.

They’ve also stepped up criticism of some of the people they describe as “opponents,” including former U.S. vice-president Al Gore and some prominent North American scientists who have published peer-reviewed research about climate change.

“I wouldn’t characterize (the government) as desperate, but it’s pretty clear that opponents are getting desperate,” said Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver Friday, after concluding a trip in Europe.

The latest efforts coincide with warnings from scientists that heat-trapping greenhouse gases have reached unprecedented levels in human history – according to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California – mainly due to burning fossil fuels such as oil, deforestation and other changes to the planet’s landscape.

Harper is headed to New York next week to promote the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would open the door to more expansion in western Canada’s oilsands industry, estimated by the federal government to be the fastest-growing Canadian source of greenhouse gases, but also representing about two per cent of the country’s economy.

The prime minister’s trip will be the latest of several by federal and Alberta government politicians to the U.S. in recent months to emphasize what they describe as the pipeline’s economic benefits, including thousands of jobs, increasing tax revenues, and improved energy security.

“It’s great that the prime minister will provide his leadership on this very important issue,” Oliver said. “We think that without any doubt, we have the facts on our side. This pipeline will be very positive for both our countries. It will address national security issues.”

The Obama administration has delayed approval of the multi-billion-dollar project proposed by Alberta-based energy company TransCanada, over concerns about environmental risks related to the pipeline route.

Environmental groups and climate change scientists have also said the pipeline opens the door to risky scenarios of energy consumption.

A group of 12 North American climate change and energy experts warned Oliver in a letter this week that his promotion of energy infrastructure and expansion of fossil fuels could put the planet on a pathway of average global warming near four degrees Celsius.

“Yet it is this very dangerous pathway… that you seem to be advocating when promoting Canadian fossil fuel development at home and abroad,” said the group, which included Harvard University applied physics professor David Keith and veteran Ottawa-based climate scientist John Stone, from Carleton University.

In Europe, Oliver said that talks promoting free trade with Canada were progressing, but he warned that the government might launch a legal challenge to proposed European climate change legislation if it maintains a fuel quality directive that could single out the oilsands over their climate-change footprint.

“We don’t want Canada’s reputation to be damaged by a directive that targets the oilsands as a completely different source of energy,” said Oliver. “There are other sources of energy that use venting and flaring that would have the same or higher level of greenhouse gas emissions.”

Harper is also expected to travel to Europe for a summit in Northern Ireland next month of G8 economies, potentially coinciding with the conclusion of Canadian and European free-trade negotiations.

Oliver suggested European politicians would back down on their climate-change proposal because of concerns over its economic impacts.

“Their growth (in Europe) is non-existent or anemic and issues of competition including competition in the refinery industry are really very much top of mind,” Oliver said.

“And so, when you have a directive that won’t achieve the environmental objectives, that will increase costs for the European economy, people are quite concerned and, you know, they want to see it changed.”

Oliver said that his government wanted climate change policies that were “based on reality,” and that he didn’t believe it would be possible for countries to shape a world powered by alternatives to fossil fuels.

The energy and climate change experts say the Harper government is mistaken.

“If Mr. Oliver believes humanity cannot prevent global temperatures rising by 4 degrees Celsius, it would be honest if he admitted this to Canadian voters,” said economist Mark Jaccard, a professor of resource and environmental management at Simon Fraser University.

“I agree with Mr. Oliver that humans will use more energy and that fossil fuels can play a big role. But this cannot involve continuing to increase carbon pollution. The carbon from fossil fuels must go back in the ground or they cannot be developed. The math is simple.”

]]>http://o.canada.com/business/money/stephen-harper-accelerates-efforts-to-promote-energy-and-trade/feed0Natural Resources Minister Joe OlivermikejdesouzaOilsands pollution levels not a concern, say federal, Alberta governmentshttp://o.canada.com/business/markets/canada-and-alberta-not-concerned-by-air-and-water-contamination-levels-from-oilsands
http://o.canada.com/business/markets/canada-and-alberta-not-concerned-by-air-and-water-contamination-levels-from-oilsands#commentsMon, 22 Apr 2013 20:25:19 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=235972]]>OTTAWA — Contaminants from the oilsands industry are polluting air and water in the region, but the current levels are “not a cause for concern,” the federal and Alberta governments said Monday as they launched a website for a new monitoring program.

The statement was part of a summary of the early results of the joint monitoring plan, which was introduced in response to criticism from scientists that an earlier, industry-led monitoring program was inadequate.

The improved monitoring plan is now managed by government scientists, instead of industry, with an increased amount of sites used to collect the data.

The new monitoring plan results indicate that some water levels were not meeting safety standards set by the Canadian Council of Environment Ministers, and that some air pollution levels were comparable to a major metropolitan region such as Toronto.

A senior industry official said companies supported transparency and also wanted to ensure scientists provide context to explain how to interpret the new data.

“Not everybody will understand the numbers, so people will need to hear from the scientific community as to what those numbers mean,” said David Pryce, a vice-president of operations at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

The governments also said most of the pollutants were below environmental guidelines and that some natural characteristics of the Athabasca River were contributing to the contamination.

Federal Environment Minister Peter Kent and Alberta Environment Minister Diana McQueen said the new website was demonstrating efforts by both governments at being open and transparent.

“I’m sure there will be instances where we will learn and we may need to make regulatory changes,” said McQueen. “That’s the whole point . . . it’s about a strong economy, but it’s also about environmental protection.”

Both governments also admitted they didn’t have clear baseline data showing the state of the region’s air, water and wildlife, prior to development, but Kent said the plan would continue to monitor development and expansion, without any need for a moratorium on new oilsands projects.

Alberta Premier Alison Redford said the data would improve over time.

“It speaks to exactly what we think is important, which is to make sure that we’re having informed debates with read data about the impact that we may see with respect to development, and to make sure that we manage that well,” she said after an unrelated news event in Sherwood Park, a bedroom community of Edmonton.

Kent’s department has previously suggested in internal briefing notes that it was not only concerned with environmental impacts of individual projects, but with the cumulative effects of the industry, including terrain disturbance, disruption of groundwater regimes and contamination of surface water.

The new website launch, on Earth Day, also coincided with a strongly worded statement by Gov. Gen. David Johnston that called on Canadians to be “curators rather than plunderers of this earth.”

But Kent said he has observed “spectacular” improvements to the industry’s environmental protection efforts, since he first visited an oilsands tailings pond a few decades ago in his former career as a reporter.

“I think, certainly in the course of my lifetime (and) my experience in the oilsands area, the improvements of technologies and practices — its corporate social responsibility at the industry — are nothing less than spectacular,” said Kent, explaining that U.S. politicians could now use the new data to address concerns from constituents about the impacts of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that could help the oilsands industry get more of its heavy oil to markets.

Pryce also said that companies were now getting invoices from the Alberta government and sending payments for the estimated $50 million in annual costs associated with the new monitoring efforts.

Federal government officials were not immediately able to say whether they had received any payments.

Kent said the government would continue to increase the number of monitoring sites over the next few years until the program is fully up and running.

The new website includes information about impacts on air, water and wildlife, but does not include data about greenhouse gas emissions, which are collected and reported separately by Environment Canada.

]]>http://o.canada.com/business/markets/canada-and-alberta-not-concerned-by-air-and-water-contamination-levels-from-oilsands/feed5Peter KentmikejdesouzaCanada’s GHGs dropping in most sectors except for Alberta oilpatch, says reporthttp://o.canada.com/news/weather/canadas-ghgs-dropping-in-most-sectors-except-for-alberta-oilpatch-says-report
http://o.canada.com/news/weather/canadas-ghgs-dropping-in-most-sectors-except-for-alberta-oilpatch-says-report#commentsThu, 18 Apr 2013 23:14:10 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=234235]]>OTTAWA — Canada’s annual heat-trapping greenhouse gases continue to level off or decline in most sectors of the economy, outside of Alberta’s oilpatch, says the latest annual inventory report submitted by the Harper government to the United Nations.

The submission, which covers annual emissions across the Canadian economy from 2011, revealed a 0.14 per cent increase in emissions to about 702 million tonnes. But the levels remain about five per cent below 2005 levels, due to structural changes in the Canadian economy that is moving from producing goods to providing services, as well as some federal and provincial policies, the report said.

“Under the previous Liberal government, greenhouse gas emissions actually increased by a staggering 30 per cent,” Environment Minister Peter Kent told Postmedia News in an email. “We were the first government in Canadian history to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

The statistics and analysis are mandatory under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, an international treaty that came into force in 1994 to prevent greenhouse gases from causing dangerous interference with the atmosphere.

The government report, prepared by Environment Canada, noted that the country’s average temperatures were 1.5 degrees Celsius above average in 2011, which makes it more likely to observe impacts such as rising sea levels and increasing extreme weather events that could intensify in the future.

A graph from Environment Canada’s report shows the country’s average temperatures were 1.5 degrees Celsius above normal in 2011.

“In some regions, the impacts could be devastating, while other regions could benefit from climate change,” the report said. “The impacts will depend on the form and magnitude of the change and, in the case of adverse effects, the ability of natural and human systems to adapt to the changes. In Canada, the impact of climate change may be felt in extreme weather events, the reduction of fresh water resources, increased risk and severity of forest fires and pest infestations, a reduction in arctic ice and an acceleration of glacial melting.”

The emissions contributing to those changes in Canada were stabilizing or declining in some sectors due to a mix of federal and provincial policies, including Ontario’s efforts to phase out coal fired electricity plants and federal fuel economy standards for vehicles that were spearheaded by the Obama administration in the United States.

But oilsands companies exploiting Alberta’s natural bitumen deposits, which require large amounts of energy and water to extract heavy oil, continue to be the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases in the country, standing in the way of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s target to lower annual emissions by 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020. A report released by Environment Canada in August estimated Canada was on pace to be about 20 per cent above that target in 2020.

The oilsands sector also now represents about eight per cent of Canada’s overall annual emissions.

The report said Canada had the largest growth in emissions among G8 countries over the past two decades. It is also among the top sources of greenhouse gases in the world, representing about two per cent of global emissions, and one of the highest sources of greenhouse gases per person.

The oilsands industry has seen its greenhouse gas emissions grow from 15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent gases in 1990 to 55 million tonnes in 2011, and Kent has pledged to introduce new regulations by the middle of this year for the oil and gas sector after years of government commitments that were subsequently delayed. Oilsands industrial activities now represent about eight per cent of Canada’s overall emissions, but they have reduced emissions per barrel of oil produced by about 26 per cent since 1990 because of new technologies as well as exporting some emissions to the U.S. for some refining and upgrading activities.

Other figures from the report show that Alberta’s industrial facilities are responsible for 48 per cent or nearly half of all industrial emissions in the country in 2011, followed by Ontario at 19 per cent, Saskatchewan at nine per cent, Quebec at eight per cent, British Columbia at six per cent, and the other provinces and territories combining for about 10 per cent of industrial emissions.

The oilsands industry’s emissions continued to be higher than those from all of the cars or light-duty vehicles on Canadian roads in 2011, but all passenger vehicles combined, including sport utility vehicles, were responsible for 88 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions for the year.

The statistics also show that annual transportation emissions, including civil aviation, were stable in recent years, but increased from 128 megatonnes to 170 megatonnes from 1990 to 2011.

During the same period, the number of vehicles on Canadian roads increased from 15.4 million to 23 million, mainly due to a substantial increase in SUVs and other light duty trucks that increased from 3.4 million to 8.6 million over the 21 years.

Electricity generation emissions were lower than 1990 levels in 2011, dropping from 94 million to 90 million tonnes after reaching a peak of 129 million tonnes in 2000.

Manufacturing and construction industry emissions have also dropped from 57.7 megatonnes in 1990 to 44.1 megatonnes in 2011.

But emissions from buildings, residential and service industry, have increased from 70 million to 84 million tonnes in the same period.

Agriculture emissions from crops and animals have also increased from 54 megatonnes to 68 megatonnes between 1990 and 2011.

]]>http://o.canada.com/news/weather/canadas-ghgs-dropping-in-most-sectors-except-for-alberta-oilpatch-says-report/feed2congestionmikejdesouzaenvironment canada, global warmingGlobal report issues ‘wake-up call’ on fossil fuels and catastrophic warminghttp://o.canada.com/business/global-report-issues-wake-up-call-on-fossil-fuels-and-catastrophic-warming
http://o.canada.com/business/global-report-issues-wake-up-call-on-fossil-fuels-and-catastrophic-warming#commentsWed, 17 Apr 2013 21:45:49 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=233349]]>Canada and the rest of the world need “strong, credible and long-term commitments” to reduce heat-trapping greenhouse gases across the economy and prevent catastrophic global warming, says a new report released Wednesday by the International Energy Agency.

The report — Tracking Clean Energy Progress 2013 – said that global efforts to clean up energy sources had stalled, despite some progress in new technologies such as electric vehicles and a boom in renewable forms of energy such as solar and wind power that is reducing costs.

As a result, it said the world is not on track to prevent global warming of more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This is a target set by governments, including Canada in international negotiations, in order to avoid irreversible damage to the planet’s ecosystems and significant disruptions to the global economy.

In Canada, the report noted that two new projects designed to capture heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions and bury them underground – also known as carbon capture and storage – had raised about $2.6 billion in public and private investments in 2012, an increase of about 33 per cent. But the report said the technology wouldn’t be deployed in the market without better government climate change policies.

“Scaling up CCS to the commercial deployment stage… will require further government support, in the form of appropriate incentive policies, along with strong, credible and long-term commitments to reducing emissions across the economy,” said the report,which noted some policies were adopted in Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec to make polluters pay. “There was limited movement in this regard in 2012.”

The executive director of the agency, a partnership of governments that analyzes energy policies said that the fossil fuel industry would need carbon capture and storage – currently being studied as an option to mitigate rapidly rising emissions from Alberta’s oilsands – in order to survive.

“Without CCS, the world will have to abandon its reliance on fossil fuels much sooner – and that will come at a cost,” Maria van der Hoeven wrote in the report.

Van der Hoeven also said the report showed that energy produced today is just as dirty as it was 20 years ago.

“The overall lack of progress should serve as a wake-up call,” said Maria van der Hoeven. “We cannot afford another 20 years of listlessness. We need a rapid expansion in low-carbon energy technologies if we are to avoid a potentially catastrophic warming of the planet but we must also accelerate the shift away from dirtier fossil fuels.”

The Harper government has delayed plans to introduce regulations to reduce heat-trapping carbon pollution from the oil and gas sector, Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gases, for seven years. But Environment Minister Peter Kent recently said the government hopes to introduce draft regulations by the summer.

The report also said that uncertainty about government policy in countries such as the United States and India is slowing the growth of clean energy power such as wind and solar.

The agency said in a report last fall that countries would need to leave about two-thirds of existing fossil fuel reserves in the ground to keep average global temperatures below the two degree Celsius threshold.

The document, sent by Oliver’s deputy minister Serge Dupont and released through access to information legislation, highlighted some benefits throughout the economy of private sector oilsands development, which were outlined in a report from the Conference Board of Canada from last October.

Like some other recent studies, the Conference Board report analyzed those benefits, estimating $364 billion in oilsands investments until 2035, creating an average of about 133,000 jobs per year related to the extraction of heavy oil from Western Canada’s natural bitumen deposits.

It noted that transportation or pipeline capacity could influence the economics of the oilsands industry and its ability to get its product to markets.

But on top of these points, frequently mentioned by representatives from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government and oil companies, the memo to Oliver also highlighted a section of the Conference Board report that said demand for fossil fuels and Canadian resources could drop if countries attempt to prevent the planet’s atmosphere from warming by more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

This temperature threshold is a goal set out in recent international climate change negotiations, based on scientific and economic studies, to prevent irreversible damage to the planet’s ecosystems and economy. Countries have not reached a consensus on a legally binding deal to achieve the target.

“The Conference Board analysis hinges on global oil prices and demand rising steadily to 2035,” said the memo, dated Oct. 26, 2012 and signed by Dupont. “If, for example, new supply sources outpace demand, or if the global energy mix changes drastically in response to global climate change initiatives, then the benefits from oilsands investments may be considerably less.”

Oliver told Postmedia News in an email that the memo highlights the critical importance of diversifying Canada’s markets to promote growth. He also said the International Energy Agency projects that, even under the most stringent climate change scenario, 63 per cent of global energy needs will still be met by fossil fuels in 25 years and require “every drop” of growing production from Canada’s oilsands.

Earlier this week, Oliver said that the Harper government is continuing to “work aggressively” to introduce new environmental protections while promoting energy infrastructure that is “critical to Canadian jobs and long-term economic prosperity.”

Meantime, the Conference Board report’s lead author said the research isn’t suggesting that the oilsands industry would be harmed in a world that is addressing global warming.

Michael Burt, the director of the industrial economic trends group at the Conference Board, said the future depends on a variety of factors such as technological innovation and production levels from major oil producers such as Saudi Arabia.

“There may be a technological breakthrough that alters the economics of the industry,” said Burt, in an interview on Friday.

“Even in a world where demand is less, it’s all about where the supply to meet that demand is going to come from.”

He also said that many significant unexpected changes in the past decade have influenced economic projections and impacts, including the sharp rise in the global market price for oil, as well as the recognition that Canada’s bitumen deposits in Alberta were recoverable and among the world’s largest reserves of oil.

Canada is the only country in the world to accept legally-binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, then formally withdraw from the international agreement.

But the report said that a combination of emerging global policies, including pricing schemes or taxes on pollution, an elimination of public subsidies for fossil fuels and new support for clean technology, would all factor in to projections for the oilsands industry. These factors could cause global oil consumption to peak in less than seven years, eventually dropping to below current levels, the report said.

“With a concerted global effort to lower emissions, the global energy mix changes drastically relative to today,” said the report, referring to an analysis by the International Energy Agency, a partnership of governments from around the world.

“These policies result in a dramatic reduction in coal use, but oil demand is also considerably weaker than in the baseline analysis laid out above.”

The report said the impacts on oilsands investment would, as a result, be “clearly negative,” but it also noted that political resistance from governments could help slow down climate change negotiations and protect the oilsands industry.

“This is in part due to the current environment where governments worldwide find themselves faced with high levels of sovereign debt, stagnant revenues, and weak economic growth.”

The three memos, prepared for Environment Minister Peter Kent, said the money was used to buy certified credits to compensate for about 16,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions generated from federal employee travel, security, the torch relay and other government activities at the Vancouver Olympics, which were hailed as the first carbon neutral games in history.

The costs of offsetting federal activities at the Olympics ended up being about 51 per cent higher than initial projections of $150,000 from February 2010 that underestimated the greenhouse gases generated by security measures at the games.

Kent’s office did not respond to questions about the memos, sent in February and November 2011 and March 2012, asking whether he agreed with the decision to purchase the offsets and how this was different from a carbon tax.

The total would be equivalent to paying a carbon tax worth about $13.55 per tonne of emissions. It does not include other credits that were donated and purchased by suppliers and sponsors to make the Vancouver event entirely carbon neutral.

Kent was told that the process to offset federal emissions, first announced by former environment minister Jim Prentice, involved forest conservation efforts in the Darkwoods Forest Carbon Project in interior B.C.’s Selkirk Mountains.

This project, selected through a competitive bidding process, also benefited from funding through a $25-million federal conservation program. But since it exceeded expectations, the firm, Ecosystems Restoration Associates, was able to sell credits for reducing emissions, said one of the memos signed by former deputy minister Paul Boothe.

“The Darkwoods carbon project involves specific activities that increase the total sequestration of greenhouse gases over and above what would have occurred as a result of the conservation funding,” Kent was told in November 2011.

The firm was later purchased by a sponsor of the games, Offsetters Climate Solutions.

The federal government reductions were achieved by protecting trees that store carbon and remove it from the atmosphere, said the head of that company.

“If you manage the land more effectively, you can also improve the amount of sequestration that goes on,” said James Tansey, president and CEO of Vancouver-based Offsetters Climate Solutions, which also donated credits and sold others to Olympic suppliers to make the entire event carbon neutral.

Tansey also said that conservation projects in forests and other improvements to land use management are an important part of addressing climate change that could help Canada address criticism over emissions from increased oilsands and natural gas extraction.

“It’s a way that Canada could restore its international reputation as a country that is acting responsibly,” said Tansey, whose firm also has similar projects in B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest and the Congo. “If we can’t immediately fix the problem of emissions from the oil and gas industry, we should change how we manage the land base.”

For example, Tansey estimated that oilsands producers could become carbon neutral by purchasing offsets at a price equivalent to about $0.05 per litre of gasoline.

The memos also indicated that a similar process was adopted to offset emissions from the 2010 G8 and G20 economic summits in Ontario, to be paid by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

After this story was published online, an Environment Canada spokesman emailed Postmedia News to say the government would not implement a carbon tax.

]]>http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/stephen-harpers-government-paid-over-200k-for-carbon-offsets-at-vancouver-2010-olympic-games/feed0Members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) receive the Olympic flag during the 2010 Winter Olympics inauguration ceremony at the BC Place in Vancouver, British Columbia, on February 12, 2010. Photo by Saeed Khan, AFP/Getty ImagesmikejdesouzaFeds spent nearly $54,000 on pro-oil lobbying retreat over two days in London, Englandhttp://o.canada.com/news/politics-and-the-nation/foreign-affairs-and-defence/feds-spent-nearly-54000-on-pro-oil-lobbying-retreat-over-two-days-in-london-england
http://o.canada.com/news/politics-and-the-nation/foreign-affairs-and-defence/feds-spent-nearly-54000-on-pro-oil-lobbying-retreat-over-two-days-in-london-england#commentsWed, 15 Feb 2012 18:33:21 +0000http://blogs.canada.com/?p=32394]]>OTTAWA-The federal goverment spent at least $53,563.23 on a two-day retreat last February in London, England that was organized to train its European diplomats to lobby on behalf of oil and gas companies against climate change legislation under consideration in Europe’s Parliament.

The bulk of the spending went through the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, which sent more than a dozen Canadian diplomats from 13 different European offices and four senior officials from Ottawa to the gathering on Feb. 1 and 2, 2011 at a cost of $22,691.43.

Natural Resources Canada also confirmed that it sent two senior department officials to the retreat as well as discussions in Brussels that week at a cost of $9,111.65 and $4,119.08, respectively. Environment Canada said that it sent one official to the retreat who reported $2,782.57 in travel and hospitality costs.

The government has estimated that there are about 25 people on its lobbying team, who don’t necessarily work full time on the issue. The government said it is pushing this marketing and lobbying campaign, in partnership with the Alberta government and the oil and gas industry, because the oilsands are a “proven strategic resource for Canada (that is) key to Canada’s economic prosperity and energy security.”

It is not clear how doing marketing for the oilsands abroad would help improve energy security within Canada.

In a summary of the gathering released through access to information legislation, a diplomat from Canada’s high commission in London, wrote that participants felt that environmental concerns about the impacts of oilsands development could be addressed if the Canadian government rolled out actual policies to regulate pollution from the industry.

The summary also noted that representatives from several companies, Shell, Statoil, Total, and the Royal Bank of Scotland, attended the meeting. The companies indicated that conservation groups were playing an important role in pushing them to improve their environmental performance, according to the internal correspondence.

]]>http://o.canada.com/news/politics-and-the-nation/foreign-affairs-and-defence/feds-spent-nearly-54000-on-pro-oil-lobbying-retreat-over-two-days-in-london-england/feed0mikejdesouzaFederal budget cuts undermine Environment Canada’s mandate to enforce clean air regulations: emailshttp://o.canada.com/technology/environment/federal-budget-cuts-undermine-mandate-of-environmental-enforcement-branch-emails
http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/federal-budget-cuts-undermine-mandate-of-environmental-enforcement-branch-emails#commentsSun, 17 Mar 2013 19:20:40 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=216051]]>OTTAWA — The Harper government’s budget cuts to scientific research at Environment Canada have compromised the department’s capacity to crack down on cancer-linked pollution and its mandate to enforce clean air regulations, say enforcement officers in a collection of internal emails obtained by Postmedia News.

As the government continues consultations with the oil and gas industry on regulations to address rising heat-trapping greenhouse gases, the emails, exchanged between Environment Canada enforcement officers from various regions including Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver, said that the government was eliminating the only Canadian group capable of writing and supervising credible testing methods for new and existing rules to impose limits on pollution from smokestacks.

One officer from Montreal noted that some recently adopted regulations controlling the release of a chromium compound — that Environment Canada says is “known to cause cancer in humans” — could not be enforced without support from the group of scientists, which was disbanded by the federal government following Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s 2012 budget.

“Air pollution is not going to vanish and it is quite reasonable to believe that other substances released in the atmosphere might become regulated,” wrote environmental enforcement officer Vincent Pretty, in an email sent on Dec. 6, 2012. “Retaining the service of a trained stack test technician and an experienced air emission scientist is probably a very strategic choice for enforcement or for the department to make now given our current and future mandate to enforce clean air regulations.”

The emails were generated in response to questions raised by Environment Canada management about whether it should ask the government to save the team. When asked on Friday, Environment Canada said it couldn’t immediately comment on the correspondence. Environment Minister Peter Kent said through a spokeswoman Sunday that he didn’t “have a role in the enforcement decision-making process,” referring questions back to the department.

At the time of the cuts, Kent’s office estimated the government would save about $600,000 per year by eliminating the seven-member team and turning to other sources for support such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

But Pretty also said that other government agencies, including an industrial waste monitoring division of the city of Montreal, had relied on Environment Canada’s expertise and called him after hearing about the cuts to voice their concerns.

Environment Canada’s enforcement officers would not do smokestack testing by themselves. Instead, they would invite the Environment Canada specialists to oversee testing by consultants or to review technical reports to ensure compliance.

Pretty wrote that the enforcement branch didn’t have the expertise to assess the quality of test reports on smokestacks from private consulting firms, now that the team has been disbanded.

“I don’t see our (officers) performing stack tests even if we had the equipment, unless the (officer) has significant background as (a) stack test technician,” he wrote. “This (reviewing reports) is something that would probably exceed our capacity to identify significant methodological non-compliance.”

In emails released through access to information legislation, other officers replied to Pretty, saying that they agreed with his “eloquent” assessment and that everyone was “on the same wavelength” on the issue.

Environment Canada has not yet announced a plan to replace the team. But one internal department proposal about its plans for the next few years has proposed to continue some of their functions within other positions. This has prompted a letter of complaint from the president of the Union of Environment Workers, who noted that each scientist had received a letter stating that their “functions” were no longer required.

“Who will be performing these functions after March 29th?” union president Todd Panas asked in a Feb. 11, 2013 letter to Environment Canada Deputy Minister Bob Hamilton. “Who will verify whether or not the work is credible or accurate?”

After reviewing the emails, Bill Van Heyst, an associate professor of engineering from the University of Guelph who specializes in air quality, said the correspondence shows that the government is overloading its enforcement branch.

“The problem is that the environmental officers and Environment Canada basically have a blind spot,” said Van Heyst, who has worked with the dismantled emissions research team. “You can have the best consultant give you a report and you have no idea whether it’s the best answer. There’s no technical ability that resides within Environment Canada to assess these stack testing protocols, the stack testing methodologies and more importantly the stack testing results and what they mean in terms of compliance.”

Liberal environment critic Kirsty Duncan said the comments in the emails also suggest the government doesn’t want to crack down on industrial pollution.

“This is an environment department that’s in crisis,” said Duncan. “The government is soft on polluters and tough on the environment.”

]]>http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/federal-budget-cuts-undermine-mandate-of-environmental-enforcement-branch-emails/feed94082720mikejdesouzaHarper government targets U.S. reporters to promote Keystone XL pipelinehttp://o.canada.com/business/harper-government-targets-u-s-reporters-to-promote-keystone-xl-pipeline
http://o.canada.com/business/harper-government-targets-u-s-reporters-to-promote-keystone-xl-pipeline#commentsWed, 06 Mar 2013 17:29:38 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=210140]]>The Harper government has created an elaborate strategy to promote approval of the Keystone XL pipeline that includes an outreach program targeting American journalists behind the scenes, newly released diplomatic correspondence reveals.

The documents reveal a flurry of activity among Canadian diplomats in the United States, dating back to the summer of 2011, as unexpected delays and a national North American protest movement started to emerge regarding Alberta-based TransCanada’s pipeline expansion proposal, which is still under review by the Obama administration.

Chris Plunkett, a spokesman for Canada’s Washington embassy, said the outreach efforts were part of normal advocacy work for an issue of importance to Canada. He said the Canadian government “strongly supports the expansion of the Keystone pipeline and the embassy continues to advocate for its approval which will contribute to energy security and economic growth for both Canada and the U.S.”

The documents, nearly 1,000 pages of emails, were released to Environmental Defence, a Toronto-based conservation group, through access to information legislation more than a year after they were requested and were heavily redacted.

“I’d like to discuss strategy for KXL hearings,” wrote Marc Lepage, at the time a Canadian embassy special adviser on climate change and energy issues, in an email to a senior Canadian diplomat – Paula Caldwell St-Onge, consul general to the south central United States.

“We’re considering a weekly ‘war room’ and I’d like your views – you’ll be very busy!”

Canada’s access to information law requires government departments, agencies and Crown corporations to release public records within 30 days, upon request, allowing for delays and exemptions in some cases.

The records revealed several attempts, over a two-week period in August 2011, to reach out to various journalists from major publications such as the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and an influential trade publication, E & E Daily, as part of a government program to “develop Canada’s network of reporters covering energy issues” and to “support energy objectives in the U.S., specifically as they relate to advocacy on the Keystone (XL) pipeline expansion.”

After a $123 lunch with one of the journalists, a media relations officer from Canada’s Washington embassy filed a report saying the meeting was designed to develop a “better relationship” with the journalist and had strengthened the network of reporters covering Keystone XL.

The records also showed a flurry of emails, generated in response to a negative editorial from the New York Times that criticized the pipeline project, going all the way up to the office of Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, prior to approval of a letter to the editor that was signed by Canadian Ambassador Gary Doer.

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline, a multibillion dollar project, would open up new routes and markets for Canadian oilsands companies to ship their heavy oil to refineries in the Gulf coast of Texas and expand production levels over the next decade.

The U.S. State Department last week downplayed environmental concerns about the project in a new report that also suggested any decision to approve or reject the pipeline would have little impact on the oilsands industry because of other pipeline projects in the works.

After receiving harsh international criticism over its climate change record at a series of global warming summits starting in 2006, the Harper government set up a special task force across multiple departments to promote the oilsands in Canada and abroad.

Canadian diplomats have also lobbied representatives of Fortune 500 companies as part of the Harper government’s efforts to promote the oilsands.

Oil and gas industry stakeholders have defended the government’s lobbying efforts in recent years to promote the oilsands industry, which represents about two per cent of the Canadian economy according to Natural Resources Canada, noting that their companies make important job and tax contributions that benefit Canada.

Environmental groups have argued the federal government’s approach has neglected emerging clean energy economic opportunities as well as the importance of cracking down on heat-trapping pollution from oilsands operations, which are considered to be the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases in Canada.

“The facts speak for themselves,” said Hannah McKinnon, national program manager at Environmental Defence. “There are no rules to control the soaring pollution from the tar sands. Until that changes, it’s all just a glossy PR strategy.”

Other records indicated the embassy officials were closely monitoring media coverage about the issue, including emerging protests outside the embassy and the White House. In one email, a Canadian diplomat suggested officials should brace for Canadian reports about the issue after spotting a Postmedia journalist covering one of the protests.

The records also show that Ambassador Doer received a bitter response to an opinion piece published in a Canadian newspaper that promoted pipeline expansion in the form of 56 similarly worded emails from people urging him to “get his facts straight and to stop lobbying for the Keystone XL pipeline.”

Another email exchanged between Canadian diplomats noted that Environment Minister Peter Kent had just introduced draft regulations to crack down on pollution from coal-fired electricity plants – finalized in 2012 – and that he should travel to the U.S. and talk about these regulations in order to promote pipelines and deflect criticism in America about the oilsands.

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver continued government efforts to promote the pipeline during stops in U.S. cities this week by suggesting that the oilsands industry was green. Bitumen, a tar-like heavy oil found in natural deposits of northern Alberta, is criticized by some scientists and environmentalists as one of the dirtiest forms of oil in the world because it requires massive amounts of energy and water to extract.

A series of internal records obtained by Postmedia News in recent months have also suggested that the Harper government deliberately tried to downplay scientific evidence about the industry’s environmental footprint on air, water and wildlife, while discouraging federal scientists from speaking publicly about their oilsands research revealing evidence that the industry is contaminating natural ecosystems.

He said the department and agency were respecting their mandates in a context of deficit reduction efforts across the government, while maintaining healthcare and social transfers to the provinces.

“Basically what we’re doing is resizing government and for Parks Canada, one must realize that we’re trying to refocus resources and Parks Canada, which is one of the best agencies I think in the world and a model for many countries’ national parks programs, is … focusing its services on the peak periods of usage.”

Quach said ski and snowshoe trails are also inaccessible at some parks in Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta because the agency is relying on volunteers instead of paid staff for maintenance in the winter months.

“The Parks are open to the public, but there are no longer any (snow) trails for anyone,” said Quach, who represents a riding west of Montreal. “There’s a reduction in staff who have been replaced by volunteers, so the services aren’t consistent between the parks.”

Overall, the agency reported a nine per cent drop in visits to national parks and historic sites from 2007 to 2012. Quach suggested this was due to budget cuts to maintenance services as well as guides who are being replaced by signs.

Parks Canada CEO Alan Latourelle told the committee that some of the budget reductions were due to the end of specific one-time spending such as the twinning of the Trans-Canada highway in Banff National Park. Some of the reductions were also introduced as part of the 2012 budget.

Quach said the overall cuts, including Environment Canada’s decision to shut down the Montreal Biosphere, an educational conservation museum on the site of Expo ’67, are clashing with the department’s mandate to promote a safe and healthy environment.

In response to questions from Conservative MP James Lunney, Kent added that the government was hoping its recent efforts and funding to create Rouge National Urban Park in the Toronto region, will help young people connect with nature, while serving as a springboard for visits to other parks.

Kent also told the committee that the government was still studying how to improve legislation protecting species at risk, either through amendments or changes in implementation, and that it was consulting a new advisory panel of hunting groups as part of the process.

Answering questions from NDP environment critic Megan Leslie, Kent said the government hoped to propose regulations to reduce heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas pollution by the middle of the year. He said that the ongoing consultations with industry groups were aiming to ensure the draft version would be “as close to having agreement as possible” to avoid a lengthy consultation period.

An Alberta-based environmental policy research organization, the Pembina Institute, expressed concerns about Kent’s comments, noting that environmental and First Nations groups were not invited to participate in a special task force made up of representatives from Environment Canada, the Alberta government, and the oil and gas industry that meets monthly to discuss the regulations.

“Groups like ours have sent our ideas into Environment Canada, and obviously we hope our recommendations are being considered,” Clare Demerse, director of federal policy at the Pembina Institute told Postmedia News after learning about Kent’s remarks.

The federal government estimates that oilsands companies represent the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada that must be addressed in order to meet Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s target of reducing annual greenhouse gas pollution by 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.

]]>http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/peter-kent-defends-budget-cuts-in-environment-department-and-parks-canada/feed4Kent and LesliemikejdesouzaFederal government’s ‘implicit’ carbon pricing lacks clarity, says reporthttp://o.canada.com/business/federal-governments-implicit-carbon-pricing-lacks-clarity-says-report
http://o.canada.com/business/federal-governments-implicit-carbon-pricing-lacks-clarity-says-report#commentsSun, 03 Mar 2013 23:31:22 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=208270]]>OTTAWA – Ten prominent energy companies are factoring the potential costs of carbon dioxide pollution into their financial planning but face significant challenges in Canada because of varying provincial climate policies, along with “implicit” prices imposed by the Harper government for specific sectors, says a new study to be released on Monday.

Based on a survey of the 10 companies, the research by Sustainable Prosperity, a think tank based at the University of Ottawa, found that the companies – including Canadian oil, gas and pipeline stakeholders such as Enbridge, Cenovus and Suncor – had all developed different mechanisms, known as shadow carbon pricing, to compensate for a lack of existing regulations.

The study also suggested that federal climate change policies needed work to address all economic and environmental concerns.

“The findings of this survey suggest that Canadian energy companies have displayed admirable leadership in developing shadow carbon price-based planning and strategy to internalize carbon costs,” said the report, Shadow carbon pricing in the Canadian energy sector. “At the same time, this leadership is no substitute for a clear public policy regime around carbon pricing that levels the playing field between companies, engages consumers, and establishes pricing levels commensurate with the attainment of our national emissions reduction obligations.”

The survey noted that there were different levels of carbon taxes or pricing in Alberta and British Columbia, as well as Quebec’s cap and trade system – a market-based regime that allows polluters to buy credits from greener companies to meet caps set by the government.

The federal government has introduced some regulations to crack down on pollution from new vehicles and coal-fired power plants that impose costs on industry, but it has repeatedly delayed plans to cap pollution from oil and gas companies – the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas pollution in Canada. Meantime, the report said that although the shadow carbon pricing was helping the companies change their practices, they were vulnerable to dramatic drops in demand for fossil fuels that could occur as the planet shifts toward a low carbon economy.

Environment Canada has estimated that its regulations for new cars and coal-fired electricity plants would cost the economy billions of dollars to businesses trying to achieve compliance. The department’s forecasts have also suggested these costs could be passed onto consumers, which is referred to, in the report, as “implicit” carbon pricing.

The report also said regulated carbon prices, not voluntary approaches, would be required to create more transparency and change behaviour that is causing pollution that contributes to global warming.

The other companies that participated in the survey were BP, Devon, Ontario Power Generation, Penn West, SaskPower, Shell and Statoil. They all agreed to answer questions for the survey, but did not want the names of their representatives appearing in research, the report said.

]]>http://o.canada.com/business/federal-governments-implicit-carbon-pricing-lacks-clarity-says-report/feed0Shadow-Pricing-GraphicmikejdesouzaFederal government sent mixed messages to industry, First Nations about environmental reformshttp://o.canada.com/news/national/stephen-harpers-government-sent-mixed-messages-to-industry-first-nations-about-environmental-reforms
http://o.canada.com/news/national/stephen-harpers-government-sent-mixed-messages-to-industry-first-nations-about-environmental-reforms#commentsSun, 24 Feb 2013 22:00:40 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=204009]]>OTTAWA – Environment Canada recommended one set of messages for First Nations groups and another for industry stakeholders a few months before the Harper government adopted sweeping changes to Canada’s environmental laws in 2012, says newly-released internal briefing notes obtained by Postmedia News.

The reforms, which reduced federal oversight on industrial development and weakened some environmental legislation, including laws protecting species at risk and water, have prompted a national protest movement in recent weeks that adopted the “Idle No More” slogan to defend the rights of Aboriginal Canadians.

One of the documents, prepared for a government summit with First Nations groups in January 2012, suggested that Environment Minister Peter Kent give representatives from the Assembly of First Nations a vague message regarding the reforms, prior to their introduction in Parliament.

“Any changes to the government’s environmental assessment or project approvals regime that you may have heard of through the media are … speculative at this point as legislation has not been introduced in the House of Commons (and) will respect our duties toward Aboriginal peoples,” said a proposed message for Kent to deliver at the Jan 24, 2012 meeting with Aboriginal leaders, held in Ottawa.

“Resources development is certainly among the major industrial sectors that are top-of-mind as we consider the modernization of our regulatory system,” Rempel was asked to say during the Feb. 2, 2012 meeting with Bill Clapperton, vice-president of stakeholder and environmental affairs with CNRL, according to the records.

“The reforms, when introduced, may be very controversial. I hope we can count on your support.”

Environment Canada recommended that Kent deliver a similar business-friendly message to a pipeline industry lobby group on Jan. 26, 2012, two days after the meeting with the Assembly of First Nations, Canada’s largest national Aboriginal organization.

It was not immediately clear whether the Conservative politicians delivered the recommended messages in their respective meetings. But Kent has previously said that the reforms are improving environmental protection in Canada by focusing on the greatest risks, and that the public will eventually recognize these improvements in the future.

Postmedia News asked Environment Canada several times since last Tuesday to explain the conflicting messages from the documents, released through access to information legislation, but a spokesman said it needed to consult with other departments before providing a response.

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver publicly announced the reforms in April 2012, prompting the AFN’s national chief, Shawn Atleo to respond with a warning that the federal proposal would undermine the government’s constitutional “duty to consult” with First Nations. Atleo also said the reforms could lead to “unlawful” and “unconstitutional” decisions that would violate the rights of First Nations, posing threats to clean drinking water, fish habitat and environmental health in Aboriginal communities.

“Thirty years after the Constitution recognized and affirmed Aboriginal and Treaty rights, it is an alarming development that Canada would take such steps that will potentially further undermine processes that already do not adequately address clear duties for consultation and accommodation and the clear principle set out in the United Nations Declaration for free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples,” wrote Atleo in a April 20, 2012 letter to Oliver.

Melina Laboucan-Massimo, a Lubicon Cree from Northern Alberta who campaigns for Greenpeace Canada, said the internal federal documents show a “complete disrespect” for First Nations communities and their leadership.

In contrast, she noted that American government representatives from the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency were more open to hearing about the consequences of decisions on Aboriginal communities, as officials consider issues such as the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project that could allow the Canadian oilsands industry to expand and ship more fuel to the United States.

“The American government is actually willing to hear our concerns, and I find this is not necessarily the case with the Canadian government because they’re labeling us as ‘adversaries,’” said Laboucan-Massimo, who was in Washington for meetings last week. “When we’re talking about clean air and clean water, I don’t think that’s something that’s very controversial.”

The AFN was not immediately able to comment on the newly-released records. CNRL declined comment.

The memo, released through access to information legislation, said that federal government scientists, including Quebec City-based research geoscientist Martine Savard, had discovered evidence of the contamination in new research that rejected longstanding claims that toxins in the region of the Athabasca River were coming from natural sources.

“The studies have, for the first time, detected potentially harmful, mining-related organic acid contaminants in the groundwater outside a long-established out-of-pit tailings pond,” said the memo from deputy minister Serge Dupont, dated June 19, 2012.

“This finding is consistent with publicly available technical reports of seepage — both projected from theory, and detected in practice.”

The study was published by Savard and 18 other co-authors and posted to an online government database in December. It concluded that some acids from the tailings ponds “may be reaching the river, but only in very small amounts (non-detectable).”

Environment Canada describes groundwater contamination as a serious problem since aquifers can remain contaminated for decades or centuries, leaking into lakes, rivers or streams, while potentially creating costly water supply problems.

Other peer-reviewed research, published last fall, has also found evidence that contaminants from oilsands air pollution are collecting on the bottom of lakes that are up to 100 kilometres away, raising concerns about anticipated expansion over the next decade.

Travis Davies, a spokesman for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said the information about leaks from tailings ponds was not a surprise, adding that the new research confirmed these contaminants had not reached the river.

“Their study isn’t new in any way other than perhaps the laboratory methods and detection limits,” Davies said in an email, adding that the industry association supports science-based monitoring and peer-reviewed research. “We also know and report on the chemistry of groundwater from our monitoring wells that surround tailings facilities. So again, (there’s) no surprise.”

Prior to the memo’s release, the association’s oilsands website said the existing monitoring programs had “not detected impacts from tailings ponds seepage on surface water or to groundwater.”

Jennifer Grant, the oilsands program director with the Alberta-based Pembina Institute, an environmental policy research organization, noted that Environment Canada says prevention is the best solution to groundwater contamination.

“It’s really challenging to assess the impact and it’s expensive to clean up a contaminated aquifer, if it can be done at all,” said Grant in an interview.

The federal scientists from Natural Resources Canada who did the study were not immediately available for interviews, a spokeswoman said.

When asked whether it attempted to inform the general Canadian public about the new research, the department said the researchers presented their findings at two science conferences in Montreal and Niagara Falls, before publishing the study “through the normal channels in December 2012.”

Environment Canada told Postmedia News in a statement that it has guidelines in place for many contaminants and that it continuously reviewed them to determine if new ones were needed, such as in cases where no guidelines existed for specific contaminants.

Spokesman Mark Johnson also said that Environment Canada was pleased with early results of a new monitoring program of the oilsands, in partnership with the Alberta government, and would use new information and data gathered to determine what action may or may not be required.

The oilsands – natural deposits of bitumen in Northern Alberta and Saskatchewan – are estimated by Natural Resources Canada to hold the world’s third largest reserve of crude oil.

While the Natural Resources Department estimates the oilsands industry represents two per cent of the Canadian economy, the companies face intensive scrutiny over their environmental footprint since extraction requires massive amounts of energy and water that have made it Canada’s fastest growing source of the heat-trapping pollution that warms the atmosphere and contributes to climate change.

The Pembina Institute and Toronto-based Environmental Defence have both issued reports in recent years warning that tailings ponds were leaking billions of litres of toxins every year into the ground.

]]>http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/oilsands-tailings-leaking-into-groundwater-joe-oliver-told-in-memo/feed18Photo of part of CNRL's Horizon Oil Sands site 70 km north of Fort McMurray, Alberta on July 27, 2011. Photo by Rick MacWilliam, Edmonton JournalmikejdesouzaManufacturing sector has bigger impact on economic growth than oilsands: documentshttp://o.canada.com/news/national/manufacturing-sector-has-bigger-impact-on-economic-growth-than-oilsands-documents
http://o.canada.com/news/national/manufacturing-sector-has-bigger-impact-on-economic-growth-than-oilsands-documents#commentsTue, 15 Jan 2013 21:05:48 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=182879]]>OTTAWA – The oil and gas industry is increasing its clout in the Canadian economy, but the manufacturing sector continues to have a greater impact on both economic growth and jobs, says an internal federal government analysis obtained by Postmedia News.

“This piece highlights the growing importance of the oil and gas extraction sector to the Canadian economy, largely driven by high oil prices in recent years, while noting that the manufacturing sector remains a greater contributor to GDP and employment,” said a memorandum sent by a senior bureaucrat to Environment Canada’s former deputy minister, Paul Boothe.

The memo was sent on Jan. 4, 2012, along with economic data from each province, in response to a request made by Boothe, an economist who left his government job in July to accept a position as a director of a policy centre at the University of Western Ontario’s Ivey Business School.

The analysis did not examine the economic impact of heat-trapping emissions and other pollution that is commonly associated with burning fossil fuels such as oil and gas.

Boothe was also told that while the oil and gas sector was contributing more to the Canadian economy than auto manufacturing – 3.2 per cent versus 1.5 per cent of GDP, the latter sector, mainly based in central Canada, was contributing twice as many jobs.

The package included a copy of a previous memo to Boothe that estimated the oil and gas sector was growing, on average, by 0.2 per cent per year over the past decade, while the overall manufacturing sector was averaging annual declines of 1.7 per cent over the same period.

The information also suggested that the entire manufacturing sector was “a substantially greater contributor to GDP (12.6 per cent) and employment (10.4 per cent), relative to the oil and gas sector.”

GDP or gross domestic product is considered to be the economic value of all goods and services produced in a country over a specific period of time.

Both internal memos were authored by Michael Keenan, an assistant deputy minister who was reassigned last month by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Kennan started a new job Monday as associate deputy minister of Natural Resources Canada.

Boothe made headlines in Postmedia newspapers across the country in November after authoring an opinion piece that criticized optimistic projections about relying on the Alberta’s oilsands sector as the main growth engine for the Canadian economy.

“Developing our natural resources in an environmentally and socially sustainable way makes good sense,” Boothe wrote in November. “Betting the farm on them does not.”

Meanwhile, separate briefing material, released this week by Natural Resources Canada through access-to-information legislation, questioned suggestions that the country’s oil and gas sector is harming manufacturing jobs by artificially increasing the value of the Canadian dollar and making it harder to sell goods abroad.

“The theory that . . . we’re pricing our manufacturing sector out of the market is overly simplistic,” said the briefing materialprepared by Natural Resources Canada bureaucrats on May 31, 2012 in response to a study by the Alberta-based Pembina Institute, an environmental policy research organization.

The theory that booming natural resources sectors could harm manufacturing jobs is also known as “Dutch disease” – a reference to manufacturing industry woes experienced in the Netherlands that coincided with growth in the oil and gas industry during the 20th century.

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair stirred up controversy last spring by openly suggesting that Canada was suffering from this type of problem, and that the government needed to make polluters respect environmental laws and pay the full costs of their pollution to remedy the situation.

The Pembina Institute study - “In the Shadow of the Boom” – suggested that some economic benefits of oilsands development were being overstated while masking long-term economic challenges.

In response, Natural Resources Canada noted that separate studies, including one by the Institute for Research on Public Policy, suggested that negative impacts on manufacturing jobs were being overstated as well as being the result of a variety of different factors. The IRPP study, however, recognized that Canada was suffering from a “mild” case of Dutch Disease.

Nathan Lemphers, a policy analyst on oilsands from the Pembina Institute, said the internal documents demonstrate contrasting views between the two federal departments, noting that all of the background views are different from public comments made by federal government officials who promote the oil and gas industry.

]]>http://o.canada.com/news/national/manufacturing-sector-has-bigger-impact-on-economic-growth-than-oilsands-documents/feed3Canada's Oil Sands Contain World's Second Largest Proven Oil ReservesmikejdesouzaHarper government climate regulations to cost $11.2 billion, but offset by savingshttp://o.canada.com/news/national/harper-government-climate-regulations-to-cost-11-2-billion-but-offset-by-savings
http://o.canada.com/news/national/harper-government-climate-regulations-to-cost-11-2-billion-but-offset-by-savings#commentsMon, 24 Dec 2012 17:00:51 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=172897]]>OTTAWA – Tougher fuel economy standards on new cars proposed by Environment Canada could actually put more drivers on the road and cost Canadians consumers and the economy up to $11.2 billion between 2017 and 2025, says a new analysis posted online by the Harper government.

But in the analysis, the department estimates benefits of up to $41.9 billion from reduced refuelling time, additional driving and reductions in fuel consumption and pollution.

“The proposed regulations are anticipated to increase the cost of manufacturing passenger automobiles and light trucks and are expected to be passed on directly to consumers purchasing these vehicles,” said the analysis, published in the Dec. 8 edition of the Canada Gazette.

The analysis said that manufacturers could earn credits to meet the new standards by performing above the standards in any given year and that they could also use an existing market-based trading system, in place for fuel economy standards for current model years up to 2017, to buy credits from other companies to meet their targets.

Although their government adopted this formula, also known as a cap and trade regime, federal Conservatives have spent the past few months slamming the opposition New Democrats for proposing this type of system to make all large industrial facilities pay for heat-trapping pollution linked to global warming. The Tories have described it as a “job-killing carbon tax” on everything.

Environment Minister Peter Kent unveiled the government proposal to publish the new post-2017 standards in late November, catching up to the Obama administration’s decision to finalize its own fuel economy standards last August that require manufacturers to introduce new technologies in cars to reduce fuel consumption and emissions from new cars.

But at the time, Kent’s department did not disclose its economic analysis, and he referred questions about costs to the manufacturers, saying only that the benefits would outweigh the costs.

Pollution Probe’s Bob Oliver, an environmental advocate who attended the November announcement, also noted that manufacturers have previously issued dire warnings about rising costs due to new standards. But he suggested that costs have not risen as dramatically as predicted.

In its December analysis, Environment Canada estimated that consumers would pay about $195 million more for the cost of new vehicles in 2017, rising to an increase of $2.4 billion by 2025, as a result of the new standards.

On average, the department estimated these costs would increase the price of each car or light truck by $127 and $162 respectively in 2017, rising to an increase of $1,856 per car and $2,453 per light trucks in 2025.

The analysis also confirmed rising costs predicted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, due to increased accidents, congestion and noise from having more cars on the roads.

“Since additional kilometers travelled will become cheaper, Canadians will drive more,” said the Environment Canada analysis, referring to a phenomenon commonly known as the “rebound effect.”

While the department said consumers would save money since the standards would reduce fuel consumption by an estimated 66 billion litres from 2017 to 2025 model year cars, the department predicted it would take two to five years for these savings to cancel out the increased purchase price of the new vehicles.

The analysis also estimated about $9 million in administrative costs to the government for enforcement, starting at $1.6 million in 2017, dropping to $800,000 by 2025.

]]>http://o.canada.com/news/national/harper-government-climate-regulations-to-cost-11-2-billion-but-offset-by-savings/feed5Peter Kent carmikejdesouzaPeter Kent says motorists could save $900 from Obama’s fuel standardshttp://o.canada.com/technology/environment/peter-kent-says-motorists-could-save-900-from-obamas-fuel-standards
http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/peter-kent-says-motorists-could-save-900-from-obamas-fuel-standards#commentsWed, 28 Nov 2012 00:19:31 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=158318]]>OTTAWA — Canadian motorists could reduce gasoline consumption by 50 per cent and save about $900 per year by 2025 through new fuel economy standards introduced by U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration that would be matched by the Harper government, Environment Minister Peter Kent said Tuesday.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Kent said at a car dealership in Ottawa. “It is government policy to have every sector play its part in meeting our greenhouse gas emissions (targets) but there are significant benefits which will accrue to consumers.”

Kent and an automobile industry representative on hand for the announcement declined to get into specifics about the costs of the new standards which were previously introduced in the United States for vehicles, starting with the 2017 model year.

A spokesman for Kent said the detailed Canadian regulations for 2017 to 2025 model year cars would be published next week.

Mark Nantais, president of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association, said the regulations would not be a cakewalk for his members and would require some heavy lifting to achieve.

But Bob Oliver, the chief executive officer of Pollution Probe, a Toronto-based environmental research group, said that existing fuel-economy standards on current models are not affecting the sales price or costing manufacturers as much as they anticipated.

“The capacity of auto sector to utilize computer-aided design, has really done a lot to accelerate the pace at which they can trial and proof a technology without a lot of destructive testing,” said Oliver, who jokingly mused about buying a new Cadillac because of its improved fuel economy. “That brings down their cost. They get it into market. They’re moving this stuff faster and deeper and at lower cost than what was predicted.”

Passenger vehicles and light duty trucks represent one of the largest sources of annual greenhouse gases in Canada at about 88 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent gases, according to Environment Canada’s most recent emissions statistics for 2010. The numbers suggest cars have become much more efficient over the past 20 years but that transportation emissions are increasing because of more cars and sport utility vehicles on the roads.

By comparison, the oilsands sector, considered to be the fastest growing source of heat-trapping gases in Canada, had annual emissions of about 48 million tonnes in 2010, according to Environment Canada.

Scientific evidence in peer-reviewed journals says that global heat-trapping emissions and land-use changes from human activity is warming the atmosphere, melting ice and changing weather patterns around the world.

Kent, who said last week he was convinced that climate change was a “real and present danger” that needed to be addressed, said the government was now “deeply into negotiations with the oil and gas sector,” while opening up discussions with other sectors.

The government also recently introduced regulations to reduce pollution from coal-fired electricity plants as part of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s international commitment to reduce Canada’s annual greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.

“I’d be misleading you if I said our 2020 targets will be easy to achieve,” Kent said. “But through internationally acknowledged measurement of where we are today, again, federal regulation, provincial actions, actions by businesses and consumers, we’re just over 50 per cent (toward Canada’s Copenhagen 2020 target) and I see that our American counterparts are acknowledging that they’re at about the same point.”

The most recent statistics from Environment Canada suggest that the country’s annual emissions are on pace to be about 20 per cent above Harper’s target in 2020.

Kent will be traveling to participate in international climate change negotiations next week in Doha, Qatar, but said he hopes to encourage other countries to take on firm commitments as part of a new global agreement to be finalized by 2015.

He said the government felt the previous legally-binding Kyoto Protocol was not fair because it locked some large developing countries into one category that he said was giving them an excuse not to participate in efforts to reduce pollution.

Environmental groups and opposition parties have said the Harper government has sabotaged the discussions by abandoning Canada’s international commitments to reduce pollution under Kyoto and announcing it would withdraw from the treaty.

http://wpmedia.o.canada.com/2012/11/kent-qanda-nov-27.mp3]]>http://o.canada.com/technology/environment/peter-kent-says-motorists-could-save-900-from-obamas-fuel-standards/feed5Kent cars announcementmikejdesouzaCutting oil and gas incentives would create thousands of clean energy jobs, says reporthttp://o.canada.com/business/cutting-oil-and-gas-incentives-would-create-thousands-of-clean-energy-jobs-says-report
http://o.canada.com/business/cutting-oil-and-gas-incentives-would-create-thousands-of-clean-energy-jobs-says-report#commentsThu, 22 Nov 2012 05:01:01 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=154544]]>OTTAWA – The federal government could create 18,000 jobs if it removed existing tax incentives for oil and gas companies, and invested the money instead in industries that reduce pollution, says a new report to be released Thursday by an alliance of labour and environmental groups.

The analysis immediately prompted an industry spokesman to respond by noting that oil and gas companies were responsible for hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs through private sector investments, while contributing billions of dollars to government coffers in tax revenues and royalty payments.

The industry’s main lobby group, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, also said that subsidies for alternative forms of energy would not be economically responsible.

But the 30-page report – called More Bang for our Buck – based its estimates on previously published studies about the economic benefits of investments in energy efficiency, home retrofits, and emerging energy sectors such as wind and solar power.

It also quoted Alberta government statistics to make the case that existing tax incentives, estimated to be worth about $1.3 billion per year and described in internal federal government correspondence as subsidies, are responsible for up to about 2,900 jobs in the fossil fuel industry.

“Canada will continue to produce and use oil for some time to come, and that will have some economic benefits,” said the report, co-signed by labour groups such as the United Steelworkers as well as environmental groups such as the Alberta-based Pembina Institute and Toronto-based Environmental Defence. “But it’s the wrong direction if we hope to tap into a growing share of the jobs and opportunity of the global transition towards renewable energy.”

The estimates from the report include both direct and indirect jobs created by investments.

Scientific evidence published in peer-reviewed journals demonstrates that human activity is contributing to the planet’s warming climate, mainly through land-use changes and the consumption of fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal that produce heat-trapping pollution.

The report noted that the warning signs from recent climate-related events such as melting Arctic sea ice and record-breaking heat show that the need to get serious about global warming is clear.

The alliance, which calls itself Blue Green Canada, also targeted unregulated expansion in Alberta’s oilsands industry, considered by the federal government to be the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas pollution in Canada, as the wrong approach forward.

“The oil industry’s plan to dramatically increase oil production will lead Canada in the wrong direction if we want to reduce pollution, ensure a healthy planet for our children and take advantage of the financial benefits of the renewable energy sector,” said the report. “While jobs will be created through oil sands expansion, the pace of development, as well as the location and type of jobs created, are not in the best interests of Canadian workers.”

The report also noted recent statements from the Alberta government highlighting concerns about future markets for heavy oil, in a context where other countries are transitioning to energy with a lower global warming footprint.

Federal Environment Minister Peter Kent said earlier this week that he was convinced climate change was a “real and present danger” that the government needed to address.

Travis Davies, a spokesman for the industry, noted that oil and gas companies support energy conservation initiatives and that they are focused on finding new ways to improve efficiency and productivity.

“Our ambitions are driven by free-market principles – such as global competitiveness – and not artificial subsidization,” Davies said Wednesday after reviewing an advance copy of the report. “Using less and producing more simply makes good business sense.”

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver was told in internal briefing notes from May 2011 that a $6.5 trillion green energy revolution was sweeping the planet and threatening to leave behind economies such as Canada if they are too focused on fossil fuel development.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was also urged in a 2010 internal memo, leaked to Postmedia News, to phase out existing subsidies for fossil fuels in order to honour a commitment made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper at a previous G20 meeting.

Although Flaherty rejected the advice at the time, he has subsequently announced the cancellation of some incentive measures in recent budgets. Kent and other ministers in the Harper government have also said that the government remains committed to phasing out the incentives.

In recent correspondence with an environmental advocacy group – We are Power Shift Canada – Flaherty noted the economic importance of the oil and gas industry, while agreeing that more work needed to be done to honour the G20 commitment.

“Rest assured, we will continually look for ways to further support global environmental commitments and eliminate inefficient fossil fuel subsidies,” Flaherty wrote in an email sent on Oct. 26. “Beyond our recent steps… to remove fossil fuel subsidies, we are also taking action through the tax system to encourage clean energy investments.”

]]>http://o.canada.com/business/cutting-oil-and-gas-incentives-would-create-thousands-of-clean-energy-jobs-says-report/feed0Budget addresses labour shortage in resource sectormikejdesouzaAl Gore to argue link between dirty energy and dirty weatherhttp://o.canada.com/news/al-gore-to-link-dirty-energy-with-dirty-weather
http://o.canada.com/news/al-gore-to-link-dirty-energy-with-dirty-weather#commentsSat, 10 Nov 2012 16:00:17 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=147620]]>OTTAWA – Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore will try to make the case next week that “dirty energy” is contributing to what he calls “dirty weather” events around the world.

“Hurricane Sandy is a disturbing sign of things to come,” Gore wrote in a recent opinion piece in the Huffington Post. “We must heed this warning and act quickly to solve the climate crisis. Dirty energy makes dirty weather.”

Gore will deliver his message on Nov. 15 through a new presentation in New York as part of his Climate Reality Project, to be broadcast on the Internet. The initiative was launched last year as a 24-hour event with slide-show presentations from around the world, highlighting the latest news about human influence on global warming.

Maggie Fox, the CEO of the project, said that although scientists cannot link global warming to specific storms, there is evidence warmer temperatures and oceans make storm systems stronger, leading to devastating impacts such as those caused by Sandy in the United States and Canada.

According to a 2010 analysis published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science in the U.S., nearly 98 per cent of the most-active climate change scientists in peer-reviewed journals support evidence that human activity is causing global warming.

This evidence says that heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions – mainly from the burning of fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal – and land-use changes are responsible.

“This is weather that is created by dirty energy, so it seems really important to name it,” Fox told Postmedia News. “Our goal is to build both grassroots and communications tools to empower people to see the reality.”

She said the project deliberately scheduled its event to be held after the U.S. elections to push it onto the agenda of the president, a few weeks before an annual United Nations climate change summit.

But she also noted that the superstorm, and other recent extreme weather events, droughts and wildfires, helped make it an issue that voters considered in the last days before the Nov. 6 vote.

In his victory speech Tuesday, President Barack Obama said that Americans want their children to live in a country that “isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.”

The Climate Reality Project event is slated to begin on Nov. 14 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, ending one day later with Gore’s new slideshow from New York. In the fourth hour, presenters will look at the impacts of climate change and recent events in British Columbia and the West Coast of North America. They will also discuss what’s happening in the Arctic and the world’s oceans over the next two hours.

Canadian participants who are part of Gore’s project also have several different presentations on climate change scheduled in the coming days in various cities.

Environment Canada recently offered its own minister, Peter Kent, a slideshow that highlights billions of dollars worth of losses caused by climate change, suggesting that the Harper government could discuss these impacts in public.

Fox said Gore’s presentation would also have some positive aspects that explore opportunities to reduce dependence on dirty energy and help stabilize greenhouse gas pollution in the atmosphere.

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]]>http://o.canada.com/news/al-gore-to-link-dirty-energy-with-dirty-weather/feed0Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore speaks during the Skybridge Alternatives Conference in Las VegasmikejdesouzaAboriginal rights could require industry to change or abandon projectshttp://o.canada.com/news/national/aboriginal-rights-could-lead-industry-to-abandon-projects
http://o.canada.com/news/national/aboriginal-rights-could-lead-industry-to-abandon-projects#commentsThu, 08 Nov 2012 20:45:34 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=146732]]>OTTAWA – Pipeline companies and other industrial stakeholders could be obliged to abandon or alter proposed projects – if a review identifies risks of irreversible impacts – because of the Canadian government’s constitutional responsibility to accommodate the rights of First Nations groups, says a newly-released internal federal discussion paper.

The document, released through access to information legislation by Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, was prepared in advance of a December 1, 2011 meeting in Calgary between federal government officials and representatives of a pipeline industry lobby group.

It highlighted First Nations rights defined under the 1982 constitution and upheld in various court decisions.

“Accommodation can vary from: adjusting an activity or process to abandoning a project, to placing terms and conditions on any permits or authorizations,” said the discussion paper.

The document was prepared as stakeholders from the oil, gas and pipeline industries were actively promoting proposed pipelines linking the oilsands industry in Alberta to the west coast of British Columbia, in the midst of delays in approval of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline expansion project to the Texas gulf coast in the U.S.

“The duty to consult and accommodate (DTC) is part of a process of fair dealing and reconciliation which flows from… the Constitution Act, 1982, and the Crown’s duty to deal honourably with Aboriginal peoples,” said the document.

“The DTC is designed to prevent irreversible harm to aboriginal interests prior to negotiated settlements and to manage ongoing relationships with treaty groups in a way that upholds the honour of the Crown.”

Proposed pipeline projects, such as Enbridge’s Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain expansion to B.C., could help support growth of oilsands production, giving companies access to new markets in Asia.

But Greenpeace Canada’s climate change and energy campaigner Keith Stewart, who obtained the document, said it shows that the government could be forced to reject approval on projects such as the Enbridge proposal, which has generated opposition from more than 100 First Nations groups that fear irreversible damage to their rights and communities.

“This government can rewrite environmental laws but it can’t rewrite the constitution,” said Stewart, referring to recent laws proposed and adopted in Parliament to weaken federal oversight and deregulate federal environmental monitoring and evaluations of projects.

The office of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Minister John Duncan said that the government of Canada “respects its duty to consult and, where appropriate, accommodate First Nations,” and that it has enhanced its approach to consultations to ensure First Nations are involved from the start of a review process.

It also said it would “continue to work with First Nations to ensure healthier, more self-sufficient communities by creating conditions for them to participate in all of the economic opportunities that Canada has to offer.”

A spokesman for the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association confirmed that federal officials had made the presentation last December during their meeting. He said that it referred to different ways the government could apply the principle of Crown accommodation.

“What is important for us is to understand what the Crown does so we know where industry fits in the overall mitigation/accommodation process,” wrote Philippe Reicher, the industry association’s vice president of external relations, in an email.

The document also stressed the importance of transparency throughout the process as part of the government’s duty to consult First Nations.

“Principles of procedural fairness should be upheld, including a clear description of how aboriginal groups’ concerns have been considered,” said the document.

The minister’s spokesman, Jan O’Driscoll, also noted that the government had announced $13 million in new funding in its 2012 budget to support consultations with First Nations and that it agreed with guiding principles such as transparency – highlighted in the document – to carry out “meaningful consultations” with First Nations.

OTTAWA — Environment Minister Peter Kent is being urged by his department to avoid distractions and focus on “essential” regulations for oilsands companies and other large polluters, a newly released internal memorandum has revealed.

The memo warned him that the commentary was misinterpreted in the media and becoming a “distraction” from efforts to reduce heat-trapping greenhouse gases in Canada.

“Addressing emissions from the oilsands — and all other major emitters — is essential to meeting Canada’s (climate change) target,” said the memo, sent from Kent’s former deputy minister Paul Boothe on Feb. 27.

The commentary, published in the Nature Climate Change journal by University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver and his doctoral student, Neil Swart, estimated that the planet’s coal reserves had significantly higher potential to warm the atmosphere than the existing bitumen deposits in Western Canada’s oilsands region.

But the memo, released to Postmedia News through access to information legislation, told Kent that the calculations were not relevant in Canada where the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions is coming from the oil and gas industry.

“The article is a distraction from the government’s climate change plan,” said the memo to Kent. “Relative to other countries, Canada has a clean electricity system, and the measures we are implementing to phase-out dirty coal-fired electricity will make it even cleaner.”

Boothe also noted that the calculations didn’t look at energy consumption patterns and the actual emissions anticipated from fossil fuels, based on projections from the International Energy Agency.

“The Weaver-Swart study is therefore of little practical value in shaping policy, particularly in Canada, and by its nature is prone to misinterpretation,” said the memo. “It has been quoted extensively in the debate on Canada’s oilsands, and the authors have complained that it has been misinterpreted as a defence of the oilsands.”

In an interview, Weaver agreed that the oil and gas sector must be regulated to reduce Canada’s emissions and he praised Environment Canada for pushing the Canadian government to stay on track.

But he explained that the commentary’s main findings still apply to jurisdictions such as the United States, where carbon dioxide emissions from electricity plants burning coal represent a larger threat to the atmospheric balance.

He said the calculations were also needed to counter other distractions caused by climate change scientists such as NASA’s James Hansen who suggested further oilsands expansion would be “game over” for the climate.

“The reason why we focused on the tarsands was specifically because of the ‘game over for planet earth’ statements that were everywhere at the time,” Weaver said. “That’s misleading because what happens is it distracts away from U.S. internal emissions reductions which would have to come from coal-fired electricity.”

Kent released estimates in early August suggesting that annual greenhouse gases are projected to rise about 20 per cent above a target agreed to by Prime Minister Stephen Harper under the Copenhagen climate change agreement.

But he said he didn’t have plans to set a specific target for the fast growing emissions from the oilsands industry, and would instead explore regulations to require the companies to adopt the best available technologies in order to protect jobs and the economy.

Kent also suggested he would finalize regulations to crack down on pollution from coal-fired power plants in the coming weeks.

The memo suggested that Environment Canada didn’t want its scientists to actively promote the assessment of “extreme events and disasters” being finalized last November in Uganda at a summit of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international partnership of governments that assesses peer-reviewed research on global warming.

“It is expected that there will be higher than usual interest in the report’s findings,” said the memorandum to Kent, dated Nov. 7, 2011, and released through access to information legislation.

“A communications plan recommending a low-profile, responsive approach for the 34th session of the IPCC is being prepared.”

A “responsive” approach would generally encourage officials not to publicly mention an issue unless prompted or asked by the public or the media.

An Environment Canada spokesman, Mark Johnson, said this approach was recommended since the communications were being led by the IPCC, and that member governments “typically undertake a responsive role” during the meetings.

The revelations from the memo, signed by Kent’s former deputy minister Paul Boothe, come as the government is staging a high-profile media event Wednesday featuring Kent, to suggest Canada is making progress in reducing the growth of greenhouse gas emissions that trap heat in the atmosphere and contribute to global warming.

The event promoting Environment Canada’s “emissions trends” report is expected to confirm recent research compiled by a soon-to-be-closed federal advisory panel – the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy – that suggested Canada was moving closer toward a national target set by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to reduce annual greenhouse gas pollution by 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.

The advisory panel attributed the progress mainly to climate change policies introduced by provincial governments while warning that Canada would not be able to keep Harper commitments without significant efforts to address rapidly growing pollution from oil and gas companies. But its report, from June, suggested the country had moved halfway toward meeting its goal, an improvement from a previous Environment Canada estimate of being one-quarter of the way toward Harper’s target that was pledged as part of the 2009 international Copenhagen climate change agreement.

Environment Canada did not plan any public event to explain its contribution to the IPCC summit, even though the government sent six senior officials from three different departments to attend the Uganda conference last November. The conference, which also reviewed changes to the IPCC process in response to criticism about its integrity, endorsed a report concluding that record-breaking temperatures and extreme precipitation events were likely changing “on a global scale as a result of anthropogenic (human-driven) influences.”

But one Environment Canada scientist, Xuebin Zhang, was able to participate in a media conference call of experts that was organized by the Science Media Centre of Canada, an Ottawa-based charity that co-ordinates public events for reporters to connect them with Canadian academics who have published research. The centre’s executive director, Penny Park, said her organization was able to co-ordinate the event in advance, in collaboration with the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Research, by planning ahead.

“I really think that in this day and age, there has to be transparency and an open discussion of science,” said Park, in an interview. “It’s one of the elements of good policy making.”

Andrew Weaver, a climate change scientist who teaches at the University of Victoria, said he was disturbed to hear about the memo’s communications approach, which he suggested was attempting to keep Canadians in the dark about the impact of the fossil fuel industry and the pollution it causes.

“It just sort of confirms what everyone thinks – that there is a lack of desire (in government) to actually engage Canadians on this topic, because the topic may actually conflict with an agenda to continue business as usual to focus the Canadian economy around tarsands development,” said Weaver, referring to an industry that is considered to be the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.

Another internal Environment Canada document, leaked in 2010, suggested that government scientists felt “muzzled” by a new government communications policy restricting their ability to speak to reporters. The document also said that Environment Canada had observed an 80-per-cent drop in media coverage of climate change issues as a result of the new rules, introduced by the Harper government in 2007.

]]>http://o.canada.com/news/politics-and-the-nation/foreign-affairs-and-defence/peter-kents-department-aimed-to-minimize-media-coverage-of-global-warming-summit-says-memo/feed5Peter-KentmikejdesouzaNew oilsands PR strategy: question media after midnighthttp://o.canada.com/news/politics-and-the-nation/parliament/new-oilsands-pr-strategy-question-media-after-midnight
http://o.canada.com/news/politics-and-the-nation/parliament/new-oilsands-pr-strategy-question-media-after-midnight#commentsFri, 08 Jun 2012 15:31:17 +0000http://blogs.canada.com/?p=59677]]>Representatives from the Alberta government and Canada’s oil and gas industry were troubled Thursday evening after reading a Postmedia News report that raised questions about the funding of a new environmental program for the oilsands industry.

Both David Sands, a spokesman for the Alberta government who actively posts comments on Twitter, and Travis Davies, a lobbyist and spokesman for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, decided to respond to the fact-based report, by raising their own questions late Thursday evening.

At the time, Collyer also noted that the industry already picked up some environmental monitoring costs. And while member companies expected to pick up a portion of costs for future programs, “one has to be realistic as well. There are other parties in the mix.”

Davies also said reporters should not “whine,” about people raising questions about media coverage outside of business hours.

But he said the industry had moved on from previous questions about picking up the bill and was on target to reach an agreement by the end of June.

Meantime, Alberta government spokesman David Sands responded to questions about his own tweets by attempting to joke with Davies about disturbing a reporter in the middle of the night regarding coverage of environmental issues.

]]>http://o.canada.com/news/politics-and-the-nation/parliament/new-oilsands-pr-strategy-question-media-after-midnight/feed0Photo of part of CNRL's Horizon Oil Sands site 70 km north of Fort McMurray, Alberta on July 27, 2011. Photo by Rick MacWilliam, Edmonton JournalmikejdesouzaTwitter exchange between Postmedia News reporter Mike De Souza and Travis Davies of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. Screengrab, Twitter Alberta government spokesman David Sands had some late night questions after reading a Postmedia News story about the oilsands. Screengrab, Twittertravis name-callingDavid Sands JokeHarper, Tory MPs challenge Peter Kent on climate sciencehttp://o.canada.com/news/politics-and-the-nation/parliament/harper-tory-mps-challenge-kent-on-climate-science
http://o.canada.com/news/politics-and-the-nation/parliament/harper-tory-mps-challenge-kent-on-climate-science#commentsSat, 02 Jun 2012 18:44:52 +0000http://blogs.canada.com/?p=58037]]>OTTAWA — While scientists and environmentalists criticize him for doing little to fight climate change, Environment Minister Peter Kent also has been questioned by his Conservative party colleagues, including the prime minister, about whether the scientific evidence is real and requires a government response.

A series of letters signed by Kent have revealed he has faced many questions from colleagues in recent months about whether Canada needs to take action to reduce consumption of fossil fuels such as coal and gasoline that produce heat-trapping pollution and other toxic emissions in the atmosphere.

But in each of the letters, released through access to information legislation, Kent defended scientific evidence, while dismissing myths such as a suggestion from one Conservative that volcanoes were a major contributor to global warming.

“Even major volcanic eruptions emit only a very small fraction of carbon dioxide compared to annual human emissions,” Kent wrote in a Sept. 6, 2011 letter to one colleague that noted volcanic ash can cause short-term cooling in the atmosphere, lasting up to three years.

“Volcanoes, in short, are not a major contributor to global warming.”

Although Environment Canada’s access to information office removed the name of this “colleague” who wrote to Kent about volcanoes after receiving an article from a constituent, the letters revealed the names of other MPs who had asked the environment minister to respond to similar questions from constituents casting doubts about scientific research on climate change.

They included Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Ontario MPs Barry Devolin and Terence Young and B.C. MP David Wilks — who recently sparked controversy for suggesting he didn’t fully support the government’s budget legislation.

Kent also used his letters to defend the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has been targeted by climate change contrarians for more than a decade.

“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report, published in 2007, concluded that the climate system is clearly warming, as shown by increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level,” Kent wrote in a July 14 letter sent in response to questions raised by someone who had contacted Wilks.

“The report also concluded that it is very likely that emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are responsible for most of the observed warming since the mid-twentieth century, and that a human influence is now evident in many other aspects of the Earth’s climate.”

When asked about the letters last week, Kent said that having debates and being challenged demonstrates the “vitality of any government.”

He also said the caucus represents a broad range of opinions in the Canadian public about the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity on the climate.

“But I think that those are fair discussions,” Kent said. “I’m glad to sit down with anybody and talk about what we know about observed science about historic data measurement, analysis and the fact that there are still many unknowns.”

Harper has cast doubts, in the past, on the ability of climate scientists to accurately predict trends, but has publicly avoided making controversial statements about the issue in recent years.

“I have said many times that climate change is a great problem for the world,” Harper said last December in response to questions from Liberal leader Bob Rae about plans to withdraw from the international Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

Harper also has slammed the Kyoto agreement, the world’s only legally-binding treaty on global warming, for having imposed “stupid targets” for Canada.

The prime minister recently appointed senators such as Bert Brown and former Olympic alpine skiing champion Nancy Greene Raine who have used their new platform in the Senate to question an overwhelming body of scientific research and evidence about human-induced climate change.

The offices of Harper, Devolin, Young and Wilks did not respond to requests from Postmedia News seeking comment.

But Kent said he and his government are convinced about the reality of scientific evidence and are committed to taking a realistic and responsible approach to tackling the challenges of air pollution and climate change with its own goal of reducing Canada’s annual greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.

“The prime minister’s signature on the Copenhagen Accord (on climate change) reflects that reality,” Kent said. “We are committed to do our part. Our small part, but our part to address climate change and reduce GHGs and short-lived climate forces.”

Green Party leader Elizabeth May said she has personally tried to reach out to Conservatives in Parliament to debunk climate myths that she believes are being spread through propaganda funded by industry.

“The biggest worry I have is (regarding) the member of his caucus who doesn’t understand climate science who is currently the prime minister. That’s the biggest worry I have, because I cannot find any evidence that the prime minister of Canada has ever had a briefing on climate science from any of the prominent climate scientists in Canada, in or outside of government.”

Facing questions about its upcoming withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol and “gaps” in its existing policies, Canada told international climate change talks in Germany Thursday that it planned to crack down on oil and gas pollution through draft regulations by next year.

Guy Saint-Jacques, Canada’s chief negotiator and climate change ambassador, said that the Canadian government was “working towards draft regulations for 2013” in the oil and gas sector as it continued efforts to meet commitments made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.

In a presentation, Saint-Jacques noted that the government was already implementing and finalizing regulations in two of Canada’s largest sources of greenhouse gas pollution, transportation and electricity generation, but was also consulting with the provinces and industry to tackle pollution from the oil and gas sector.

“Once we have finalized the oil and gas regulations, we will have covered some 60 per cent of our emissions,” Saint-Jacques told his international counterparts.

Overall, the government estimates the oilsands were responsible for seven per cent of Canada’s annual greenhouse gas emissions in 2010, while the entire oil and gas sector produced 22 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gases in the same year.

Travis Davies, a spokesman for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said the 2013 timeline was “in line” with the industry’s expectations, noting that it already faces some reporting and regulatory requirements in Alberta and British Columbia.

The federal and provincial governments have announced plans to improve monitoring of environmental impacts, but have failed to introduce any regulations that would require a reduction in emissions from current levels that are now higher than annual pollution from all the cars on Canadian roads and about the same as pollution from all light-duty trucks.

In his presentation, Saint-Jacques said that Canada’s overall emissions were still projected to rise above current levels, based on existing government policies, but that new plans by provinces such as Quebec, Ontario, B.C., and Alberta, along with emerging federal policies, would gradually improve environmental performance.

“We are quite confident when all those measures are taken into account, you will see… a major deviation from the blue line that was on the screen,” said Saint-Jacques, referring to a chart that showed the gap between Canada’s existing emissions trends and its climate change goal for 2020.

But the Alliance of Small Island States, a group of countries that have warned they may not survive the planet’s changing climate, urged Canada and other developed countries to work harder at reducing emissions.

“So it’s clear that more needs to be done to put Canada on a path to meet its target,” said MJ Mace, from St. Lucia, who spoke for the alliance, showing a chart that said Canada was “not” on the right track and would see annual emissions rise to 33 per cent above 1990 levels by 2020.

Scientists and governments from around the world have agreed that greenhouse gas emissions from consumption of fossil fuels, deforestation and other land-use changes are causing dangerous changes to the atmosphere that could cause irreversible damage to the planet and global economy. They says countries must dramatically reduce emissions to avoid average global temperatures from rising by more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Naderev Sano, a climate change commissioner from the Philippines, also questioned the motives behind Canada’s decision to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, the world’s only legally-binding treaty on global warming.

Saint-Jacques replied that it was a “political” decision based on an assessment that the agreement wasn’t the best path forward since the Canadian government believed it didn’t adequately address rising emissions from emerging economies.

The ambassador also noted that the government still has an “interest” in measures to put a price on carbon dioxide emissions through market mechanisms since some provinces are implementing or exploring this option within their own climate change plans.